
DOBELL COLLECTION 



\ 



ENGLISH AND LATIN POEMS. 



-••■/• 



ENGLISH AND LATIN 

POEMS, 

ORIGINAL AND TRANSLATED. 



BY THE LATE 



JOHN LATH Alf. D.C.L. 



OF BEADWALL HALL. CHESHIRE. 



• IX MIMORIAM. 



NOT PUBLISHED. 



MDC CCL1II. 






T. RICHARDS, PRINTER, 
GT. QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN. 



205449 
'13 



C X T E N T S. 



The articles in the Table of Contents printed in italics formed 
part of a little volume published, without the author's 
, name, at Sandbach. in 1836. 



Memoir 



ENGLISH POETRY. 

DEVOTIONAL. 

Paraphrase of the opening invocations of the Litany - • 3 
Paraphrase of tlie Petition from the Litany, " In all time of our tri- 
bulation", etc. - - - - - 5 

Version of Psalm xxin, t: God, my Shepherd and my Guide"' - 7 

Version of Psalm xxxix, " From all offence, I said, and wrong" - 9 

Version of Psalm xcvi. i: In songs of praise unheard before" - 13 

Version of Psalm cm. "With every faculty combined" - - 16 

Version of Psalm cxxxix, ,,; Omniscient, omnipresent power"' - 20 
Version of Psalm cxlvi, " Praise the Lord, O my soul, while I live 

shall the Lord" - - - - - - u 

Stanzas suggested by Lzekiel ch. ii. ver. 10 - - - 36 
Paraphrase of a passage in Bishop Home's Sermon on the Redemption 

• ■Time - ■ - - - - 30 



CONTENTS. 

On the Epiphany; suggested by the concluding paragraph of Bishop 

Home's Sermon on that Festival - - ■ - 33 

Hymn for New Year's Day : " Another year its course has sped" - 36 

Hymn for Children : " Lord, who once thine arms unfolding'" - 38 

" Far from the paths of sin'' - - - 40 

" Lord, who once from Heaven descending" - 42 

" "When first God's word to Samuel came" - 44 

on the opening of Wheelock Church, Cheshire, Aug. 30, 1837 46 



To my Wife .... - 51 

The Twenty-fourth of May ... -54 

On the Anniversary of my Wedding Day, 1827 - - - 55 

Sonnet — " As amid Afric's sandy wastes the sight" - 59 

Evenings at Home - - - 60 

On the Second Birthday of J. H. L., 1825 - 67 

Sonnet on first taking his eldest Child to Church - - - 72 
Sonnet—" Departed spirit of my darling Child" - 

" Stretched on the restless bed of pain" - - - 74 

Epistle to my Father, Dec. 29, 1829 - - - 78 

MISCELLANEOUS. 



Lines in imitation of Pope 
Fragment of a Moral Epistle - 
The banished Tea-tray's Complaint 
Ode to Deafness 
To my Tooth 



90 
92 



98 



CONTEXTS. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



The Old Man of Verona. From Claudian - - - 105 
TJie Story of Count Ugolino. Dante, Inferno, Canto 33 - - HI 
Tasso. Gerusalemrne Liberata, Canto 1, Stanza n - - 119 
Canto 3, Stanza i. The Approach to the Holy City - 123 

Canto 4. Stanza ix. The Address of Satan - • 131 

Canto 4, Stanza lxxxvi. The Arts of the Enchantress 

Armida - - - - - - 141 

Canto 12,' Stanza lxiv. The Baptism and Death of Clorinda 151 

The Harper and the Nightingale. From Strada's " Prolusiones" - 159 

,; Defendit nunierus", from Vincent Bourne - - - 169 

" Innocens prsedatrix", from Vincent Bourne - - - 171 



LATIN POETRY. 

ORIGINAL. 

Ad Patrem, 1805 - - - 

An Contraria mutuo se expellant: Afiirmatur 

An Bruta cogitent : Afiirmatur 

Ad Amicum Uxorem ducturum 

Lines descriptive of the Garden at Springfield - 

TRANSLATIONS, 

Against Pride in Dress. Watts - - - - 191 

Signs of Eain. Dr. Jenner - - - - - 19? 

The Poplar Field. Cowper - - - - - 203 

The Rose, Cowper - - 207 



177 

181 
182 
184 
187 



CONTENTS 

Mortuary Verses. Cov/per ... - 211 

Wilfrid's Song, from " Rokeby". Scott - - - 217 

Go, lovely rose. Waller and Kirke White - - 223. 

Epitaph in Wisbeach Churchyard - - - 227 

The envious Snow ... - 229 

Though the same sun. Pope ----- 229 

Oh, Nanny, wilt thou gang with me. Bishop Percy - • 231 

When Spring unlocks the flowers. Heber - - - 235 

The Song of Judith, chap, xvi, ver. 2 - - 239 



~oc/c»(S v >3~ 



MEMOIR. 



John Latham, the subject of this memoir, was 
the eldest son of John Latham, M.D., F.R.S., 
and of Mary the eldest daughter of the Rev. 
Peter Mere, vicar of Prestbury, in Cheshire. 
He was born at Oxford (where his father then 
resided, and practised as a physician) March the 
18th, 1787. In the year 1789, Dr. Latham trans- 
ferred himself and his family to London, where, 
for forty years, he pursued his profession with 
reputation and success. Finally withdrawing 
from the world in 1829, he spent the last four- 
teen years of his life in retirement, at Bradwall 
in Cheshire, and died in 1843, at the advanced 
age of eighty-two, leaving behind him a good 
name, and a lasting title to the love and grati- 
tude of his children. 

Accidental circumstances determined for his 
eldest son the place of his education very early 

b 



11 MEMOIR. 

in life. Macclesfield school, in those days, had 
a considerable reputation, which was sustained, 
and afterwards greatly advanced, by Dr. David 
Davies. To this school, and to the special care 
of Dr. Davies, recently appointed its head- 
master (and connected with his family by mar- 
riage of his mother's sister), John Latham was 
consigned at the early age of five years. How 
he mastered the first hard elements of Latin 
and Greek, whether with ease or difficulty, 
cannot now be told. It may be presumed that 
the course of his early education ran smoothly, 
for he was always a happy boy ; but it is cer- 
tain that, no sooner had he pierced the rind, 
and tasted the fruit of classical literature, than 
he perceived how sweet it was. 

To the three or four last years of his school 
education he was accustomed to look back as 
to the most important period of his life. And 
to him it was really so ; for although the know- 
ledge acquired at that early age may generally 
be less important, as preparatory only to things 
more needful for the business of life, to him it 
was rendered all in all by a coming event most 
sad and unforeseen. 

But all the value which belonged to this 



MEMOIR. 



period had been brought home to him, he con- 
sidered^ by the sound instruction of Dr. Davies. 
He had a filial feeling of gratitude towards 
him ; he would often reckon up with thankful- 
ness the sources of his happiness, and never 
without ascribing a large share of it to the solid 
and accurate learning of this admirable man. 
In the days of his own mature scholarship he 
would still quote many a well-remembered 
maxim of Dr. Davies, and bow to it as authority. 

It was remarkable of him, while yet at school, 
that in the gradual growth of his mind, his 
taste seemed to keep pace with his knowledge ; 
and hence he was distinguished above other 
boys chiefly by his compositions. His exercises 
were seldom returned, after perusal, without 
one of those marks of approbation appended, 
which the pupils of Dr. Davies so well remem- 
ber as their great objects of ambition; and, 
among these, he would sometimes send up a 
copy of English verses, or a Latin Sapphic, or 
Alcaic ode of exceeding beauty. 

It is interesting to record, as prominent parts 
of his character at this time, his great love of 
athletic exploits, his great bodily activity, and 
his great personal courage : qualities which the 



IV MEMOIR. 



conditions of his after-life never brought into 
active display, but which, had the field of enter- 
prise been ever opened to him, might have 
been no mean auxiliaries to force of intellect. 
There were, however, other qualities in him, 
as a boy, on which it is pleasing to look back 
and trace in them the permanent lines of his 
character. Perhaps that character was early 
formed, both in its intellectual and moral aspects. 
Already he was very methodical, and a great 
economist of time; and hence, while he got 
through much work of the kind he loved, he had 
much leisure left for sports, which he loved also. 
Goodnature was remarkable in him as a boy : 
not the mere passive sympathy, but the active 
principle of goodnature. He was ready to give 
what cost him time, and trouble, and effort: 
especially he would help the less successful in- 
dustry of others in their studies. He would 
set his face against all petty tyranny and bully- 
ing, and always take part with the weak against 
the strong. With very susceptible feelings, he 
had a temper singularly placid and unresentful. 
From his very boyhood it might be truly said 
of him, that he never se hurt anybody by word 
or deed." Amidst all the broils, and conflicts, 



MEMOIR. 



and license of a school, no profane or unbeseem- 
ing word was ever known to pass liis lips. 

He was hardly more than sixteen, when, in 
1803, he was entered at the university of Ox- 
ford. The day on which he first became a 
member of the university was a memorable one. 
It was the day of the commemoration, on which 
the youthful, Reginald Heber, with the simple 
feeling and fervor of a poet, recited, in the 
Theatre, his beautiful prize poem of " Pales- 
tine". Reginald Heber and he were members 
of the same college, Brasenose, and were after- 
wards elected fellows of All Souls, and became 
personal friends. He did not go to reside at 
Brasenose until January 1804. 

Oxford, in those days, did not present the 
strong incentives which it now does to literary 
ambition. Still there were many reading men ; 
many who became wise from their own love of 
knowledge, or from a determination to fulfil the 
purpose of their going there, though not from 
the encouragements of the place. Among these 
was John Latham. A contemporary has a pleas- 
ing recollection of the large resort, once a-week, 
to Latham's room, to hear him construe Aris- 
tophanes, in preparation for the next day's 
public lecture in hall. 



VI MEMOIR. 



The chancellor's prizes were then the chief 
objects of competition ; the English essay for 
bachelors ; and the Latin verse for undergra- 
duates. The prize for English verse was only 
occasionally given. John Latham won the prize 
for Latin verse in 1806. The subject was 
« Trafalgar." 

The examination for degrees was then only 
in its first stage towards reform. It was held 
publicly in the schools ; but there was, as yet, 
attached to it no classification according to 
merit. Those who did well were complimented 
by the examiners; and John Latham, at the 
end of Michaelmas term 1806, gained this, 
which was then the greatest honour annexed 
to the examination. In the same term, while 
yet an undergraduate, and before he had passed 
his examination for his degree, he was elected 
a fellow of All Souls. 

It had long been a settled thing in his family 
that the law was to be his profession. His father 
had lived and flourished among lawyers, and 
the best and most eminent of them were his 
most intimate friends. It was natural that his 
thoughts and feelings, and his estimate of things, 
should run in the same current with theirs, and 



MEMOIR. 



that his hopes should catch a glimpse of the 
honours of their great profession one day falling 
upon his son. Accordingly, about Christmas 
1806, he was entered at Lincoln's Inn. On the 
same day he received from the hands of Serjeant 
Williams, his father's most intimate friend, a 
present of his great work (Saunders* Reports), 
and a plan laid down for his legal studies. 

It is not possible to conceive a human being 
happier than Dr. Latham at this period : him- 
self only forty-five years of age, in the full 
career of his professional success, enjoying the 
esteem of the best men living, rejoicing in his 
eldest son's university success, crowned by his 
election to All Souls, and seeing him now at 
the entrance of his profession, and looking upon 
him, perhaps, as the example which others 
whom he loved might be found to follow. Those 
who knew the tenderness and enthusiasm of 
his nature could understand his happiness : his 
own family could tell how his heart overflowed 
with gratitude. But there is a Will above our 
will; and this higher Will, when it thinks fit, 
unmakes our purposes, and breaks in pieces all 
the images of our idol- worship, sometimes gra- 
dually, sometimes suddenly and with a shock. 



Vlll MEMOIR. 

The winter of 1806 and 1807 was severe. 
Ophthalmia was a prevalent disease. John La- 
tham, whenever he caught cold, was apt to have 
his eyes inflamed. A few days after his entrance 
at Lincoln's Inn, late at night, and heated with 
exertion, he was exposed to a current of cold 
air. As usual, inflammation fell upon his eyes ; 
but it did not, as usual, soon pass away. It 
became rapidly worse, and defied all the means 
employed to arrest its destructive progress ; and, 
in one short month, he was all but blind for 
ever. It was fondly hoped that enough of sight 
would ultimately be preserved in one eye to 
enable him to read ; but, alas ! it was only suf- 
ficient to guide his steps ; and never did he 
read a printed book again. 

His disease and its treatment brought down 
his health and strength so low, that two or three 
months were needed for their restoration ; and 
then he came back again into life. But all its 
hopes were gone. Yet even then his own cheer- 
fulness was the one bright ray shining through 
the cloud which hung over his father's house. 
And now he had not quite completed his twen- 
tieth year ; a long life might be before him ; 
he could form no purposes for the future ; he 



MEMOIR. 



could only wait upon the will of God, and trust 
it as his guide. Happily his years had hitherto 
been well spent ; and the seed of the sower, 
fallen upon good ground, brought forth fruit 
with patience. 

As his strength returned he began to think 
of All Souls as his future home. He was the 
youngest in years of all the Fellows ; he had 
been very recently elected, and had resided 
there only a few weeks prior to his calamity, 
when he had all the fresh and happy feelings 
which must naturally belong to one just adopted 
into such a societv. But now, when he was 
going to return to All Souls, he had far differ- 
ent feelings. He thought of his own dependent 
state ; of the society, which was still new to 
him ; of friendships there, which were yet to be 
formed ; and of his own unsuitable condition to 
form them. As far as he durst frame any plans 
for the future, it was among his hopes that his 
college might become to him a second home. 
Could it, indeed, ever become so ? The expe- 
riment was to be tried ; and, with such thoughts 
passing in his mind, he resumed his residence 
at All Souls in the summer of 1807. Here he 
made his first trial of the world since the sad 



MEMOIR. 



event which, had entirely changed his relation 
to it. He was welcomed with great kindness 
and sympathy ; all were ready to do him ser- 
vices of friendship, and to participate with him 
in whatever he took a pleasure and an interest 
in. After a few terms of residence, his college 
became indeed to him all that he had hoped, 
even a second home : and, for fourteen years, 
he spent several months of every year at All 
Souls, deriving from it much tranquil happiness, 
and much mental improvement, and many 
friendships. 

A college life would perhaps, under any cir- 
cumstances, have been not unsuitable to his 
nature. In his actual state it brought within 
his reach, by the help and sympathy of conge- 
nial minds, what he could otherwise have hardly 
obtained. In Oxford he was never idle; he 
always found those who willingly admitted him 
to share their reading and their studies. Some 
read to him the current literature of the day, 
some read books of more solid information, 
some the classics, and some, who were prepar- 
ing for holy orders, read divinity. In this 
variety of literary intercourse he was often the 
instructor as well as the instructed. In classics, 



MEMOIR. XI 

especially, his accuracy and his taste could 
hardly fail to furnish a useful lesson to the 
reader, whoever he might be. 

And now, when the recovery of his sight 
had become quite hopeless, unrepining at his 
bereavement, and even thankful for the little 
ray of light that still was left to him (sufficient 
only to enable him to see near objects indis- 
tinctly), and, by his cheerfulness, attaching even 
strangers to him with a feeling of tenderness 
and respect, he was a happy man. By what 
seems to be a divinely-ordered law of compen- 
sation, he had resources which almost counter- 
balanced his great loss : his scholarship, his 
love of literature, his memory, his powers of 
imagination, and his extraordinary enjoyment 
of music. As to the last, his natural fondness 
for it seemed to grow upon him after he was 
abridged of his enjoyments through the sense 
of sight. Perhaps his ear was quickened by 
the partial closing of that other sense to a nicer 
and more exact perception of the differences of 
sound ; for he has said that he could distin- 
guish who were present in a room with him by 
their very breathing. Either from his own in- 
aptitude (as he asserted), or, as was more evi- 



Xll MEMOIR. 



dently the truths from bad instruction, he was 
unsuccessful in his attempt to become a prac- 
tical musician ; nor did he possess any strictly 
scientific knowledge of music. But his intense 
enjoyment of it latterly amounted almost to a 
passion, and was a large ingredient in his cup 
of happiness. He would sit, silent and ab- 
stracted, by the hour, listening with delight to 
the performance of any first-rate instrumental 
composition. His ready and well-furnished 
memory was improved by a perpetual exercise, 
and had its stores continually increased by fresh 
accessions ; and he had the power of drawing 
upon it at will, as a source of interest and 
amusement. Thus his mind was never inactive. 
When left alone, or when unable to sleep at 
night, he would make the repetition of an 
jEneid, or of a book of the odes of Horace, 
serve for an occupation or an opiate. And 
again, his strong imaginative faculty was an 
inexhaustible resource to him. Limited as he 
had become in the power of external observa- 
tion, he was the more drawn within himself; 
and the acquisitions of his mind afforded a wide 
range of choice to his imagination. The great 
pleasure that he took in this intellectual exer- 



XE^IOIR. Xlll 



cise was evidenced by his perpetual production 
of some fruit of it. Like his favourite Cowper, 
he would turn any subject or idea that struck 
him forcibly into poetry, and could make all, 
from the most touching incident down to an 
attack of deafness, or the loss of a tooth, alike 
poetical. 

In recalling the particulars of this period of 
John Latham's life, it may be mentioned that 
he devoted himself, during the greater part of 
the years 1811 and 1812, to the tuition of a 
younger brother, previously to his entering at 
the university. It was his first essay in the 
work, which afterwards, as his own children 
grew up, became to him, for so many years, the 
one great practical occupation of his life. His 
pupil, who survives him^ cherishes with an 
affectionate and mournful gratitude the recol- 
lection of that time. He remembers with what 
heartiness his brother seemed to enter on their 
daily work, as if it was a real pleasure to him- 
self, and so brought him to seek and find an 
interest in it ; and he feels, and thankfully 
acknowledges, that to the mental discipline and 
moral training of that period, he mainly owes 
the happiness of forty years, which they have 



XIV MEMOIR. 



since passed together, one in heart, and mind, 
and taste, and feelings ; and even more than 
brothers. 

In the summer of 1816, he made an excursion 
of a few weeks, in company with his brother 
Henry, to Paris, and through Belgium and 
Holland. It was a source of much enjoyment 
to him ; and, in order to impress his memory 
with distinct ideas of the different places which 
he visited, his first object always was to pace 
the circuit of the walls, and then to ascertain 
how the main streets intersected each other. 
He ever afterwards recurred with pleasure to 
this little tour, and all its novel incidents ; but 
he remembered also his misery on the passage, 
in a gale of wind, to Calais, and never could 
resolve to make a second voyage. 

In recurring to the past, John Latham's early 
friends will recollect the pleasure that he de- 
rived at this period from his occasional visits to 
the theatre. Theatricals were then, what they 
have now ceased to be, a subject of continual 
interest and discussion in society; for it was 
then that by-gone, brilliant epoch of the drama, 
the age of the two Kembles, Mrs. Siddons, 
Young, and Miss O'jSTeil, and of a host of comic 



MEMOIR. XV 

actors, all excelling in their art ; when nume- 
rous plays of Shakspeare were brought upon 
the stage by John Kernble, with a perfectness 
perhaps never seen before or since. A privi- 
lege of being admitted privately to the pit of 
Covent Garden Theatre, before the inpouring 
of the crowd, had been kindly granted to him a 
of which he frequently availed himself; and, 
seated in the centre of the front row, from 
whence the shadows' of the actors passing by 
could be distinguished by him, he entered fully 
into the illusion of the scene. 

His time was now divided periodically be- 
tween All Souls, and his father's house in Har- 
ley-street, or Cheshire ; and nothing occurred to 
change or vary the tenor of his existence until 
his marriage. On the 24th of May 1821, he 
was married, at Crawley, Hants, to Elizabeth 
A>'ne, the eldest daughter of his father's friend, 
the late Sir Henry DAMPiER,one of the judges 
of the Court of King's Bench ; and few women 
could have been found so well qualified to be 
the wife of one in his peculiar circumstances, 
as she who then became his partner and true 
helpmate, and to whom he was indebted for the 
unbroken happiness of the next eighteen years, 



XVI MEMOIR. 

the term of his married life. With a highly 
cultivated mind, stored with accurate and ex- 
tensive knowledge, and able to appreciate and 
take part with him in all his intellectual enjoy- 
ments, she had a disposition as domestic as his 
own.. She had his strong moral and religious 
principles, partook of all his tastes, and was, 
moreover, what was to him no unattractive en- 
dowment, a good musician. 

Their first residence was in Somerset-street, 
near Portman-square, where they passed ten 
years in that quiet and unvaried round of life 
which, in its retrospect, leaves so little for the 
recollection of the mere spectator, and perhaps 
little more even for those who have themselves 
been parties to it. Friends, books, and music, 
and literary composition, the " delightful in- 
dustry enjoyed at home," made up the sum of it. 
Of the way in which their happy evenings were 
ordinarily passed, he has drawn a pleasing pic- 
ture in a little poem inserted in this volume ; 
one of those which, in many successive years, 
he presented to his wife on the anniversary of 
their wedding-day. Reading is there made 
the main employment of the evening ; and read- 
ing was the morning's occupation. It is, indeed, 



MEMOIR. XV11 



extraordinary how many hours of every day 
were spent by him continuously in reading ; 
he had absolutely a craving for it, and the 
regular indulgence of the appetite had become 
essential to his comfort. For thirty years toge- 
ther he did not omit the good custom of read- 
ings every morning, the four lessons and the 
psalms appointed for the day. Then came the 
reading of the newspaper, that he might not be 
uninformed of any incident of importance in 
the current of events. Besides this, a course 
of miscellaneous reading always was in pro- 
gress, and the accumulating literature of the 
day had to be kept pace with. His wife ac- 
quired the faculty of employing herself mecha- 
nically with her needle, or some other house- 
wifery, without distracting her attention from 
the book ; and, under the instruction of her 
husband, she soon attained a knowledge of 
Latin, so as to become his amanuensis in that 
language, and enter into his enjoyment of its 
literature. 

As their family grew up about them, some of 
the morning hours were devoted to the instruc- 
tion of their children ; and in his teaching he 
observed the scrupulous exactness, and the ad- 



MEMOIR. 



mirable method, of his old schoolmaster at Mac- 
clesfield, of which he felt the value in his own 
sound acquirements. An interchange of visits 
with the houses of their many family con- 
nexions in London, and a regular attendance 
at every concert of the Ancient Music, in its 
season, were the only evening pleasures that 
they sought or cared for, out of their own 
home. In 1829, Dr. Latham, then in his sixty- 
eighth year, had finally retired from London 
to his estate in Cheshire ; and three years later, 
John Latham removed from Somerset-street to 
Springfield, a house belonging to his father in 
Sandbach parish, within five minutes' walk of 
Bradwall Hall, his father's residence. 

Springfield was a plain substantial house, 
with the formal garden in the front of it, filled 
with large antiquated evergreens, and laid out 
with grass walks and quaintly- shaped flower 
beds, which are described so neatly in a copy 
of Latin verses in this volume. And there the 
same even, happy tenor of their life went on ; 
while their near residence increased the com- 
fort of his aged father and mother. The grand- 
father, always remarkable for his love of little 
children (an amiable feature of his character 



MEMOIR. XIX 

which his eldest son inherited), was enabled to 
exchange visits many times a day with his 
infant grandchildren ; and the society of his 
son and daughter-in-law gave him a resource 
and occupation, beyond the interest that he was 
taking in his books and farm. 

But his portion of domestic sorrow was to be 
measured out to John Latham. He already had 
experienced one affliction, in the death of an 
engaging boy, at an age when he had become 
peculiarly endeared to him ; and, at the begin- 
ning of 1839, his happiness was still further 
overcast by the rapidly declining health of his 
wife. It was their custom to make an annual 
round of visits to their relations in the south of 
England ; and, while they were staying at her 
mother's house in Tonbridge Wells, she died, 
on the last day of May. Her immediate death 
was not expected ; for she had not yet even 
kept her room, when she was found lying dead 
one morning by her husband's side. The de- 
voted wife, who had been all in all to him, and 
the mother of his children, was thus taken 
from him with a stroke. But, though he felt 
acutely, in devout submission to the will of 
God he was enabled to possess his soul in 



XX MEMOIR. 

patience. The touching circumstances of his 
wife's death are told by him in the following 
lines, written at the time : — 

" I will not see her in her coffin laid ; — 
No, let her still be present to my sight 
Such as I last beheld her ; not confined 
With grave-clothes, and with trappings sad arrayed: 
But, as by some fine sculptor's hand portrayed, 
Half-raised, and partly on her side reclined ; 
Her placid features as in hope resigned ; 
Her parted lips as though e'en now they prayed : 
One cheek upon her pillow gently prest, 
Her pale hands on each other lightly thrown. — 
Such was the lovely image which I woke 
That morn to look upon ; — I turned, and spoke ; 
'Sleep'st thou?' — I touched, I kissed her — life had 

flown — 
Her ransom'd spirit was indeed at rest." 

The robust old age of Dr. Latham had gra- 
dually been breaking down, under the increase 
of the painful malady (stone in the bladder) 
which was eventually to bring him to the grave ; 
and when, upon the death of Mrs. Latham, in 
December 1841, his aged father was left soli- 
tary and bed-ridden, bereft of her who had 
been the partner of his life for fifty-seven years, 
John Latham moved his family from Spring- 



MEMOIR. 



field to the Hall : and in little more than 
another year, on the 20th of April 1843, his 
father died. But he was to be tried by a more 
heavy sorrow ; for the hand of death was not 
laid only upon those whose departure was to 
be expected in the course of nature. The grave 
was scarcely closed upon his father, when it 
was reopened to receive his eldest son John 
Henry. He had lost three other children, in 
infancy or early childhood ; but this stroke fell 
upon him at a time when he was hailing the 
fulfilment of his own long-cherished, fondest 
hopes, and the earnest of his boy's success in 
after life^ in his brilliant university career. 

John Henry, then an undergraduate of 
Brasenose, was a young man of the greatest pro- 
mise, and already of attainments far beyond his 
years. He had gone to Rugby in the autumn of 
1835, admirably grounded by his father's home- 
instruction, and was placed at once in a position 
very much in advance of his contemporaries in 
the school. In March 1837, when he was just 
fourteen, he gained the Rugbj r scholarship ; 
but, in consequence of a severe attack of pleu- 
risy at the beginning of 1838, it was found 
necessary that he should be withdrawn from 



XX11 MEMOIR. 



school. From that time the advantages of 
Rugby were entirely lost to him. He remained 
at home a year : and, though he went back in 
February 1839, the symptoms of returning ill- 
ness did not permit him to continue at Rugby 
more than a few weeks. Dr. Arnold, in a kind 
letter of condolence written at the time to his 
father, says, " he is now, at sixteen, the fourth 
boy in the school, and quite equal to his place." 

He now suffered a relapse of his original dis- 
ease. For several months, and at the very time 
of his mother's death, his life was in peril from 
day to day. But at length present danger 
passed away ; and then his father was willing 
to sacrifice every other consideration to the 
restoration of his health. He discouraged his 
reading, and endeavoured to withdraw him 
from books to out-door amusements. And in 
truth, for more than a twelvemonth, which he 
spent at home before he went to college, his 
mind was far less engaged in study than it had 
been for several previous years. 

In the autumn of 1840, his health was suffi- 
ciently re-established for him to go to Oxford. 
But, so fearful was his father of the place and 
its objects of ambition producing in him efforts 



MEMOIR. 



and excitement of mind beyond his bodily 
strength, that John Henry went there with a 
sort of tacit understanding that he was to con- 
tend for no honours, and attempt nothing 
beyond a common degree. 

But he was no sooner in Oxford, than he 
found a Craven scholarship thrown open to the 
university, and immediately to be competed 
for ; and when, feeling perhaps his own power, 
he supplicated his father that he would allow 
him to stand, it was an entreaty which a father 
could not absolutely deny. He could only dis- 
courage his purpose ; and this he did, by telling 
him that success was beyond his reach, and 
that such open scholarships could only be 
gained by those who had had advantages of 
previous training far beyond any which he had 
enjoyed. Nevertheless, John Henry became a 
candidate ; and, in the first term of his resi- 
dence, he was elected Craven scholar. In the 
Lent term of 1843, he was unsuccessfully a 
candidate for Dean Ireland's scholarship ; when 
Edwin Palmer, of Balliol, succeeded, and the 
name of John Henry Latham was announced 
as that of the candidate " qui proxime accessit". 
But, though he failed in this object of his am- 



XXIV MEMOIR. 



bition, with what ability he contended for the 
prize of classical taste and learning, is shewn not 
only by the honourable mention made of him 
by the examiners, but by his exercises, which 
have been preserved. Several of them are 
beautiful compositions, and prove how well the 
father had formed the taste of his dear pupil 
upon his own. 

When he came home at Easter 1843, he was 
far advanced in his preparation for the schools 
in the ensuing autumn, looking forward to the 
easy attainment of that further academical dis- 
tinction which he knew would most gladden 
his father's heart, — a place in the first class. 
It was, however, otherwise ordained. His 
system had been overwrought ; and, in the hope 
that it might be recruited, he was advised not 
to return to Oxford for the two terms preced- 
ing the long vacation. But his health, which 
had been too far undermined, gave way rapidly, 
and he died within a few weeks of his grand- 
father. This was almost the greatest sorrow 
that John Latham ever knew ; yet he did not 
permit himself to give way to depression, but 
bowed in humble resignation to his chastise- 
ment. He seldom spoke of him ; but in every 



MEMOIR. XXV 



book that had belonged to John Henry, there 
is inscribed, " olim e libris desideratissimi J. 
H.", or some equivalent memorial ; and there 
were indications that he was often present to 
his thoughts. A beautiful window,* of his de- 
signing, is erected to John Henry's memory in 
the Bradwall chancel of Sandbach church. It 
represents the raising of the widow's son to life, 
with the text underneath, w Young man, I say 
unto thee arise"; and, in the two side-lights, 
are figures of Christian Faith and Hope, — the 
emblems of the sources of his consolation. 

Amongst his father's papers there is a single 
sheet (containing only a few paragraphs written 
from his dictation) of the commencement of a 
memoir of this extraordinary boy. He found 
it a task too painful for him to resume. After 
stating that the window in the chancel of Sand- 
bach church was fitted up with stained glass in 
memory of his beloved and lamented son, it 
thus proceeds : " Lest, in the course of years, 
when the present generation shall have passed 
away, any descendant of mine, or collateral 
representative, should be unable to give an 
answer, when asked, who the person was whose 

* Executed by Messrs. Ward and Xixon. 



XXVI MEMOIR. 



name and early death are here recorded, I have 
thought it right to put together the following 
brief memoir, which I hope will be carefully 
preserved in my family. Had it pleased God 
to spare the life of my dear boy, and to grant 
him bodily health at all proportioned to his in- 
tellectual endowments, he would, in all human 
calculation, have raised up a name for himself, 
which would not have needed any other memo- 
rial. But it was ordained otherwise ; and, 
under the full conviction that it was so ordained 
for the best, I have always bowed, without a 
murmur, to the righteous dispensation of an 
all- wise Providence. 

" J. H. L. was born in Harley-street, Lon- 
don, February 14, 1823, in the house of his 
grandfather, Dr. Latham. Though at first puny 
and delicate, before the expiration of six months 
he became a strong and vigorous child, and by 
an extraordinary vivacity of spirits, gave indi- 
cations of a sound constitution and the promise 
of future health, which, in point of fact, he very 
generally enjoyed till about his fifteenth year. 
If the parents of J. H. had been of the num- 
ber of those who look with apprehension on the 
intellectual precocity of children, as a prognos- 



MEMOIR. XXV11 

tic of early deaths they would indeed have had 
much reason for alarm ; but they were not so, 
and, on the contrary, watched with pride and 
delight the early dawn and rapid development 
of as fine an intellect as child was ever blessed 
with. The quickness of his apprehension, and 
his aptitude and eagerness to learn, were such, 
that the labour of his parents, who were his 
only instructors till he went to Rugby in his 
thirteenth year, was rather to check than to 
stimulate his progress ; and for myself I can 
safely say, and his dear mother used to say the 
same thing, that I do not remember ever to have 
gone through a lesson with him which was not 
a source of unmixed pleasure both to the teacher 
and the pupil. 

" The following extract from a letter of J. H., 
addressed to his grandfather, bearing the date 
of January 4, 1832, six months before he com- 
pleted his ninth year, will show the progress 
which he had made, and was then making, in 
his daily studies with me and his mother." 
The extract mentions how, on such and such 
days in the week, he did Greek grammar and 
Greek Testament, writing out anomalous verbs 
and derivations ; Caesar, and Virgil's JEneid, 



XXVul MEMOIR. 



which last he repeated the next morning ; Latin 
verses and Latin exercises ; arithmetic, and geo- 
graphy ; and that he had begun the second 
volume of Robertson's History of America. And 
" all this/ 5 the memoir adds, " was done with 
such perfect ease to himself, that, at the time it 
did not strike us as anything beyond the ordi- 
nary course ; but, in the retrospect, when com- 
pared with the attainments of other boys of the 
same age, and with that of his younger brothers 
while under my own tuition, at a much more 
advanced age, it seems to me something very 
extraordinary. 5 ' 

After his father's death, John Latham briefly 
entertained the question, whether it might not 
contribute to his happiness to remove again into 
the south, where he would be within an easier 
distance of his dearest family connexions ; but 
he had a strong sense of the responsibilities of 
his new position as a landowner and country 
gentleman, and at the same time conceived that 
it would have been his father's wish that he 
should remain at Bradwall ; and therefore he 
determined still to occupy the paternal house, 
and there devote himself to the unobtrusive 
duties of his station. How well those duties 



3IEM0IR. XXIX 

were performed by him is known, and could be 
best told by the small circle of attached friends 
who lived with him in habits of social inter- 
course. He became an active and useful magis- 
trate, though it was with some difficulty that he 
was prevailed upon to undertake the office ; 
for he feared that his bereavement of sight 
might disqualify him for its satisfactory per- 
formance. But, though he entered upon it at 
the first experimentally, and with much self- 
distrust, when he found that it involved little 
business which he was not competent to trans- 
act, and that, in fact, it opened to him a wider 
sphere of usefulness, he became fond of the 
occupation. 

At no period of his life was the simple beauty 
of his character seen so advantageously as at 
this. It was, as it had always been, essentially 
domestic ; and those who knew him in his own 
quiet home could best appreciate its more strik- 
ing features ; the way in which he entered into, 
and brought home to himself, the hopes, and 
schemes, and joys, and sorrows, of all those whom 
he loved ; his general kindliness of feeling ; his 
spirit of gentleness and moderation ; his happy, 
never-failing cheerfulness ; his strong good sense ; 



XXX MEMOIR. 

and the unpretending quietness with which,, in 
conversation, he dealt out the various inform- 
ation which his tenacious memory commanded. 
Settled by strong conviction in his Christian faith, 
he lived a life of unostentatious but habitual 
piety. His daily reading of the Scriptures has 
been already mentioned ; and when, as was his 
constant practice if no clergyman was domes- 
ticated with him, he led the morning and even- 
ing prayers of his assembled household, there 
was an unaffected earnestness in his manner, 
and even a peculiarity of utterance, which 
marked his feeling of the duty in which he was 
engaged. The doing all the good within his 
power was not with him a mere result of feel- 
ing, but a principle ; and his prudent manage- 
ment of a moderate, unencumbered independ- 
ence enabled him to devote no small proportion 
of his income to such deeds. It had been the 
practice of his honoured father to set apart a 
certain sum for private eleemosynary purposes, 
which he called his " Corban-fund"; and the 
good custom was not discontinued by his son. 
He had a personal knowledge of all his poorer 
neighbours, and his charities towards them were 
unstinted. To the many public calls upon him 
he responded more than liberally. 



MEMOIR. XXXI 



And so the last nine years of life were 
passed by him ; doing much good with the 
worldly means entrusted to his charge^ and 
good incalculable by his personal influence and 
example; regarded with respect and love by 
friends and neighbours and dependents ; happy 
at home, in the occupation which he loved, 
the education of his younger son, and in the 
affectionate attention of his elder son and of his 
only daughter, who had devoted herself alto- 
gether to his comfort since her mother's death, 
and been, instead of her, his reader and amanu- 
ensis, and his inseparable companion ; and inte- 
rested in the few active public duties which lay 
beyond the pale of his own family ; and only 
varying this routine by his much-cherished cus- 
tom of an annual interchange of visits with his 
relations in the south. 

In the month of August 1852, his daughter 
was married to the Rev. Ambrose Jones, M.A., 
the incumbent of Elworth^ within the parish of 
Sandbach ; and (as Bradwall Hall was in the 
centre of the Elworth district, and that his 
daughter should continue to reside with him 
was essential to the comfort of her widowed 
father), it was arranged that they should make 



XXX11 MEMOIR. 

his house their home. But they were hardly 
settled there, when, in the beginning of Decem- 
ber, he was attacked by the disease which ter- 
minated his mortal existence. It was found 
that he had pleurisy, with water on the chest, 
and that the operation of drawing off the fluid 
by puncturing the side was immediately neces- 
sary. But, though it was performed twice 
successfully, the disease, which, in a younger 
man, would probably have been arrested by the 
operation, bade defiance to the best medical 
skill. He lay eight weeks upon his death-bed. 
His illness was not, indeed, attended by the 
suffering of acute pain ; but there was still much 
bodily distress incidental to it. Yet he showed 
no fretfulness or impatience. He had some- 
times, in his health, confessed the natural fear 
with which he invariably looked forward, not 
to death, but to the unknown pangs of dissolu- 
tion ; and, at the reading of the Litany, he 
habitually took up, and solemnly and audibly 
repeated, the petition, " in the hour of death, 
good Lord deliver us !" But, as he had felt his 
great necessity, and had prayed to be delivered 
from it, he received strength from his Saviour 
in the hour of trial. For now, when he knew 



MEMOIR. XXX111 



that he was upon the bed of deaths he forgot 
all these apprehensions ; and while those about 
him were heart-broken, as they saw him lying 
helpless, wasted, and worn out with his tedious 
illness, and confounding, from his blindness, 
midnight with midday, he was even cheerful ; 
full of gratitude to his family and household 
for their long, plutiful attendance on him, and 
expressing no anxiety but that his poor depen- 
dents might not lose their accustomed Christ- 
mas gifts, and that no purposes of kindness 
which he had expressed, should be forgotten 
after his departure. He derived great comfort 
from devotional reading to him, and especially 
from the reading of the Psalms ; remarking that 
he had often thought of the extraordinary adap- 
tation that might be made, by any thoughtful 
reader, of at least some part of almost every one 
of them personally to his own state and circum- 
stances; and how forcibly he felt this truth 
now brought home to himself. One night, 
when he had been sleeping disturbedly, under 
the influence of laudanum, he awoke in a state 
of great excitement. He had dreamed that he 
was struggling with a serpent. te Read me," he 
said," the 91st psalm, and I shall be composed." 

d 



MEMOIR. 



In the last week of January, although the end 
was not believed to be so near, it was felt that 
every hope of ultimate recovery must be re- 
signed. But, day by day, he grew more feeble, 
untile on Sunday morning, the 30th of January, 
it became evident that he was sinking rapidly ; 
and never had Christian a more peaceful end. 
He was quite conscious of approaching dissolu- 
tion. Calm and composed, he commended his 
spirit unto God who gave it. He asked a 
blessing separately upon each of those who 
stood around his bed, and breathed his last 
about midday, without apparent pain or any 
struggle. 

On the following Thursday he was interred 
in Sandbach churchyard. Every shop and 
house was closed, as the simple funeral proces- 
sion passed through the street ; and his remains 
were borne from the churchyard gate betwen 
two lines of uncovered, sorrowing spectators, 
into the church, and to the grave ; where, with 
his father and his mother, his eldest son and 
infant children, his body is buried in peace ; — 
but his spirit lives for evermore. 

He has left three surviving children : George 
William, his eldest son; Mary Frances, wife 



MEMOTK. XXXV 



of the Rev. Ambrose Jones ; and Francis Law, 
a boy at Rugby school. 

It hardly can be necessary, but it may per- 
haps be right to add, that this short sketch of 
an uneventful life was drawn up with the view 
to its being perused only by the personal friends 
of the deceased ; nor is it likely that it will find 
its way into the hands of many others. But 
those who have had the happiness of a life- 
long intimacy with John Latham, may feel 
a melancholy pleasure in retracing, step by 
step, these recollections of the past ; while those 
who had the privilege of knowing him but 
recently, and those whose early intercourse was 
only broken off by their separating into differ- 
ent paths in life, may be interested to know 
more of the preceding or the after-course of 
one whom they had learned to love. To these, 
this little biography will, it is hoped, be an 
acceptable addition to the volume offered to 
them, as a memorial of their departed friend. 
A stranger cannot be expected to take the same 
personal interest in it ; but, if it has been truly 
said, that a faithful record of the private life 
of any individual, however undistinguished, 
would contain both interest and instruction, 



XXXVI MEMOIR. 



even an indifferent stranger may find them 
here. He may learn how large a share of 
earthly happiness was mercifully reserved for 
one whom the world, from his bereavement, 
might have deemed without resources ; and he 
may see, in this slight portraiture, another ex- 
ample of that peculiarly English character, — 
the unobtrusive but accomplished and high- 
minded Christian gentleman. 



April 21, 1853. 



DEVOTIONAL. 



POEMS. 



PARAPHRASE 

OF THE OPENING- INVOCATION OE THE LITANY. 



God the Father ! by whose power 

Heaven and Earth and Sea were made. 

And till time's expiring hour 
All Creation shall be swayed ; 

Hear us, when on thee we call, 

Miserable sinners all ! 

God the Son ! For Man's salvation, 
Who thyself the price didst pay, 

Whose atoning expiation, 

Our transgressions washed away : 



4 PARAPHRASE. 

Save us, when on thee we call, 
Miserable sinners all ! 

God the Holy Ghost ! Proceeding 
From the Father and the Son, 

Who for Man art ever pleading,*' 
Wretched Man by sin undone ; 

Help us, when on thee we call, 

Miserable sinners all ! 

Oh ineffable Communion ! 

Holy, blessed, glorious Three, 
Three in one, mysterious union, 

Undivided Trinity ! 
Oh have mercy, when we call, 
Miserable sinners all ! 

* Eom. viii. 26. 

Sept. 1S.27. 



PARAPHRASE 

OF THE PETITION FROM THE LITANY — 

' IX ALL TIME OF OUR TRIBULATION, IX ALL TIME OF OLE WEALTH, 

IN THE HOUR OF' DEATH, AND IN THE DAT OF JUDGMENT; 

GOOD LORD DELIVER US." 



In the dark season of distress, 

In peril, want and woe, 
If friends desert, or foes oppress, 

Or sickness lay me low ; 
If, reft of those I fondly love, 

From earthly ills I flee, 
To seek sweet. comfort from above; 

Good Lord, deliver me ! 

If wealth be mine, from all the snares 
Which riches with them bring ; 

From worldly pleasures, worldly cares 
The soul encumbering ; 



b PARAPHRASE. 

From pride, and from that worst offence, 

Forgetfulness of thee, 
Whose hand that wealth did first dispense ; 

Good Lord, deliver me ! 

When on the bed of death, a prey 

To gloomy thoughts, I lie ; 
Or worn by slow disease away, 

Or racked with agony ; 
Stung with remorse for what has been, 

And dreading what shall be 
When death has closed this mortal scene ; 

Good Lord, deliver me ! 

And oh ! in that appalling hour, 

When, clouds around thee spread, 
Thou com'st, arrayed in pomp and power, 

To judge the quick and dead; 
When trembling, shrinking from thy face, 

Thy servant thou shalt see 
A suppliant at the throne of grace ; 

Good Lord, deliver me ! 

Good Friday, 1825. 



PSALM Hill, 



God, my Shepherd and my Guide, 
Will for all my wants provide ; 
He in pastures green will feed me, 
And beside still waters lead me ; 
He my ransomed soul shall bless, 
Turning it to righteousness ; 
And the path I ought to take 
Teach me, for his dear name's sake. 

Yea, when earth itself at last, 
From my sight is fading fast, 
When with shadows dark o'erspread, 
Death's lone valley I shall tread ; 



PSALM XXIII. 

Yet no evil will I fear, 
For thou, Lord, wilt still be near ; 
With thy Eod and Staff wilt be 
Present then to comfort me. 

Thou, when foemen closed me round, 
Mad'st my table to abound ; 
Oil upon my head didst pour, 
And didst make my cup run o'er ; 
Me thy kindness ever new, 
And fresh mercies still pursue ; 
Therefore will I all my days 
Seek thy House, and sing thy praise. 



PSALM XXXIX. 



From all offence, I said, and wrong 
I will take heed to guard my tongue ; 
A bridle on my mouth I'll lay, 
"While in my sight the ungodly stay. 

With such resolve my peace I held, 
My lips to silence I compell'd ; 
Yea, though it cost me grief and pain, 
E'en from good words I did refrain. 

While thus I mused, the fire suppress' d 
Long time within my labouring breast, 
Kindling at last, resistless broke, 
And as the Spirit moved, I spoke. 



10 PSALM XXXIX. 

Lord, let me know mine end, I said, 
And since my days are numbered, 
Tell me their sum, and make me sure, 
How long my life may yet endure. 



Behold, my days are but a span, 
For verily the age of Man 
Is nothing in respect of Thee, 
But altogether vanity. 



Man walketh in a shadow vain, 
Vexing himself with fruitless pain, 
He heaps up riches, nor the while 
Knows who shall use the hoarded pile. 



And now my hope, what is it, Lord ? 
On Thee it rests and thy sure word ; 
Keep me from all transgressions free, 
The scoff of fools I would not be. 



PSALM XXXIX. 1 1 

In mute submission, for 'tis Thou, 
Who chastenest me, I humbly bow ; 
Yet oh, if such thy will, my God, 
Take from me thy consuming rod. 



When with rebukes thou dost chastise 
Proud man for his iniquities, 
Thou mak'st his beauty to decay, 
Like garment to the moth a prey. 



Thus ev'ry man, whate'er his state, 
Or rich, or poor, or mean, or great, 
Yea, ev'ry man whoe'er he be, 
Is altogether vanity. 



Hear Thou my prayer, in pity hear, 
And to my cry bow down thine ear ; 
Oh keep not silence when I call, 
Nor let mv tears unheeded fall ! 



12 PSALM XXXIX. 

Some space to serve Thee here accord ; 
I am a stranger with Thee, Lord, 
A sojourner on life's brief scene, 
As all my sires before have been. 



Then spare me, for a little spare ! 
That my lost strength I may repair, 
To walk with Thee, ere hence I go 
And be no longer seen below. 

1846. 



PSALM XCYI. 



In songs of praise, unheard before, 

Let all the earth the Lord adore ; 

Sing to the Lord and praise his name, 

Tell how from Him salvation came ; 

His honour to the heathen show, 

Let the whole earth his wonders know. 

God cannot worthily be praised, 

xlbove all gods so highly raised ; 

They are but idols, wood and stone, 

The Lord our God is God alone. 

He made the heavens, there saints adore Him, 

Glory and worship go before Him ; 

Girded with power, with honour crowned, 

God in his holy place is found. 



14 PSALM XCVI. 

Oh ! then unto the Lord ascribe, 
Nation and kindred, tongue and tribe, 
The honour due unto his name, 
The glory He may justly claim. 
With joy unto his courts repair, 
And, as your gifts you offer there, 
Meet worship to the Lord address, 
In beauty and in holiness. 
Then tell it out, that all may hear, 
And God's eternal name revere, 
Yea, tell it out, and bid the sound 
Go forth to all the nations round, 
That He is king, and how He made 
The earth, and its foundations laid 
So sure, that they may ne'er remove 
Till that great day, when from above 
In clouds descending He shall come, 
To pass on all a righteous doom. 
Be glad, thou earth; ye heavens, rejoice ; 
Thou sea, send forth thy glorious voice ; 
Forest and field, with one accord, 
Rejoice, rejoice, before the Lord ! 



PSALM XCVI. 15 

For now is our redemption nigh ; 
E'en now, in might and majesty, 
He comes ; with glory round Him spread, 
He comes to judge both quick and dead, 
To heal our woes, our wrongs redress, 
And judge the world in righteousness. 

May 1820. 






psalm cm. 



With every faculty combined, 
My soul, of body and of mind, 
The praises of the Lord proclaim, 
And bless, O bless his holy name ; 
Nor ever let the memory part 
Of all his goodness from my heart. 

'Tis He, who doth thy sins forgive, 

Thy sickness heals, and bids thee live 

When death's dark shades were gathering round, 

He saved thee and with mercy crown' cl, 

Thy powers to youth and strength restoring, 

Like new-fledged eagle heavenward soaring. 



PSALM cm. 17 

Tis He who doth the wronged redress 
In judgment and in righteousness ; 
His ways to Moses He revealed, 
His out-stretched arm was Israel's shield ; 
They saw His wonders, and adored 
The mercies of the living Lord. 



How doth His kindness still o'erflow, 
Long- suffe ring and to anger slow ! 
Our faults He will not always chide. 
In wrath He doth not long abide, 
Nor with us deal, when we transgress, 
According to our wickedness. 



For look, how high this earth above 
Is yonder Heaven, — so vast His love : 
From East to West the space survey, — 
So far He puts our sins away ; 
Yea, as a Father, is He moved 
With pity towards a child beloved. 

c 



18 PSALM cm. 

For God, still merciful as just, 
Remembers that we are but dust ; 
Man's days are but as grass, a flower 
That springs and withers in an hour ; 
The winds pass o'er it and 'tis not; 
Where late it bloomed, unknown, forgot. 



But the Lord's mercies, ever sure, 
Through generations shall endure ; 
Towards children's children still displayed 
Of such as in His Faith have stayed, 
And ever thought upon His will, 
How best His precepts to fulfil. 



The Lord in heaven hath set His throne ; 
His power through all the world is known : 
Ye Angels, who in strength excel, 
With trumpet-tongue His praises tell ; 
Ye, who still hearkening to His voice, 
To execute His word rejoice. 



PSALM CIII. 19 

Praise Him, all ye His Hosts, who stand 
Prompt to perform your Lord's command ; 
Bless ye, His works, your Maker's name, 
In every place His power proclaim ; 
And thou, my soul, unite to raise 
The universal song of praise. 

•Tune 9th, 1837. 



PSALM CXXXIX. 



Omniscient, Omnipresent power ! 
In every place and every hour, 
I own thy sway ; when down I lie, 
And when I rise, Thou still art nigh ; 
My very thoughts to Thee are known, 
Ere yet in speech or action shown. 



About my path, about my bed, 

The shadow of thy wing is spread ; 

Thy sleepless and all-seeing eye 

Doth my most secret ways espy ; 

And in an instant every word, 

My tongue lets fall, thine ear hath heard. 



PSALM CXXXIX. 21 

How, then, thy Spirit may I shun ! 
Or whither from thy presence run ! 
If, soaring through the realms of air, 
I climb to Heaven, my God is there ; 
If down to deepest Hell I go, 
There too thy Spirit rules below. 



If I should take the wings of morn, 
And to earth's utmost bounds be borne, 
In lonely isle, on desert plain, 
Escape from Thee would still be vain : 
E'en there thy power would be confest, 
And thy right hand my flight arrest. 



Come, night, and hide me ! should I say, 
Straight would the night be turned to day ; 
With Thee no shades obscure the night, 
The darkness is as clear as light ; 
The midnight gloom, the noonday sun, 
Darkness and light, to Thee are one. 



22 PSALM CXXXIX. 

My body, fashioned with such art, 
Such nice design in every part, 
The work of thy Almighty Hand, 
Exceeds my skill to understand. 
How to such knowledge may I soar i 
I can but wonder and adore. 



When in the womb, like unformed clay, 

My yet imperfect substance lay ; 

From Thee my bones were not concealed, 

But every member was revealed. 

E'en then, through nature's hidden plan, 

Thine eye beheld the future man. 



How dear to me thy counsels, Lord ! 
Who may the sum of them record ? 
In number countless as the sand 
Heaped by the billows on the strand ; 
E'en from my earliest waking hour, 
I feel thy presence and thy power. 



PSALM CXXXIX. 23 

Shall not the wicked, Lord, be slain, 

All such as take thy name in vain ? 

Depart from me, ye men of blood ; 

Ye that against the Lord have stood, 

Ye scorners of His power divine, 

I hate ye ! Hence, — God's foes are mine. 



Then try me, Lord, prove every part, 
Search all my thoughts, and sound my heart ; 
Look well my footsteps do not stray, 
But turn them from the evil way. 
Xor let me from the true path rove, 
That leads to endless joys above. 



August Dth. 1826. 



PSALM CXLVI. 



Praise the Lord, oh my Soul ! — while I live shall 

the Lord 
For His mercies unnumbered be praised and adored. 
Yea as long as my being endures will I raise 
My voice to my God in thanksgiving and praise. 
Oh put not your trust in the princes of earth, 
Nor in any frail thing that from man has its birth ; 
There is no help in them, their race quickly is sped ; 
And, when once from the body the spirit is fled, 
Turned again to their earth in the grave they must lie, 
And with them their thoughts and vain projects 

shall die. 
They alone, who their hope and their confidence cast 
Upon Israel's God, shall find peace at the last : 



PSAL3I CXLVI. 25 

For ne'er can our trust in that Being prove vain, 
Who made Heaven, Earth, and Ocean, with all they 

contain ; 
Whose promise is sure, and whose truth stands con- 
fessed, 
Who sooths the afflicted, and aids the oppressed ; 
Who feedeth the hungry, whose words can unbind 
The prisoner's bonds, and give sight to the blind ; 
Who uplifts such as fall from the depths of despair, 
While the righteous are still His peculiar care ; 
Who succours the stranger, the widow befriends, 
And His ear to the cry of the Fatherless lends — 
But the way of the wicked, though secret, He knows, 
And to nought brings their schemes, and their 

counsels o'erthrows. 
Praise the Lord, oh my soul, then ; His praise let 

me sing : 
For the Lord God in Sion for ever is King. 

Sept. 29, 1829. 



STANZAS 

SUGGESTED BY EZEKIEL II, 10 : 

' AND HE SPREAD IT BEFORE ME: AND IT WAS WRITTEN WITHIN AND 

WITHOUT; AND THERE WAS WRITTEN THEREIN LAMENTATION, 

AND MOURNING, AND WOE." 



And what was the Book which that vision of oH 
To the Prophet's rapt spirit did show ? 

Wherein to his shuddering sight were unrolled 
Lamentation, and mourning, and woe ? 

That mysterious roll was the volume of life, 

The story of man here below ; 
The record of evil, of passion, and strife, 

Lamentation, and mourning, and woe. 



STANZAS. 27 

Search the chronicle through, each condition and 
age, 

Young and old, rich and poor, high and low : 
You will still find inscribed upon every dark page 

Lamentation, and mourning, and woe. 

There is poverty, sickness, oppression, and wrong, 

False friend and insidious foe : 
Temptations and trials resistlessly strong, 

And their fruit, lamentation and woe. 

On the threshold of life, that to trouble we're born 
By our wailings we seem to foreknow ; 

And childhood's sweet prime, and youth's opening 
morn 
Are too often o'erclouded with woe. 

Full of hope we set forth, but how quickly doth fate 
Blast that hope, and our projects o'erthrow; 

And conviction comes soon, and remains long and 
late, 
That our heritage here is but woe. 



28 STANZAS. 

Mark the struggles of manhood to weather the 
gale, 

When the storms of adversity blow ; 
And the waves of destruction on all sides prevail, 

And beneath yawns the whirlpool of woe : 

Without compass or star the frail vessel is tost 

On the ocean of life to and fro ; 
Till on shoal or on rock it is shipwrecked and lost 

Amid weeping, and wailing, and woe. 

Grant these perils surmounted; what then is our 
lot, 

But with painful decay, sad and slow, 
To sink to the grave, disregarded, forgot, 

'Mid infirmity, weakness, and woe ? 

But riches, and rank, and the pleasures of sense, 
These can happiness surely bestow ! — 

Few and short are the joys which e'en these can 
dispense, 
And their end disappointment and woe. 



STANZAS. 29 

But the bliss, which is built on affection and love, 
May not this be relied on ? Ah ! no ; 

Too soon shall stern death each dear object remove, 
And leave us to bitterer woe. 

And though there be moments, which o'er the dark 
scene 

May at times cast a transient glow ; 
Like meteors they pass, and the brightness between 

But deepens the gloom of our woe. 

Cease, murmurer, cease ! hear Religion's sweet voice, 
Which, whate'er we may here undergo, 

Whispers peace to the mourner, and bids him re- 
joice 
In the midst of affliction and woe. 

For the day when in joy we shall reap draweth near, 
Though in sorrow awhile we may sow ; 

When from every face shall be wiped every tear 
And the weary shall rest from his woe. 

Sept. 1827. 



PAEAPHEASE 



ON A PASSAGE IN BISHOP HORNE'S SERMON ON THE 
REDEMPTION OF TIME. 



The Husbandman with ceaseless toil 
Still labours to improve his soil ; 
When danger's near approach alarms, 
The soldier sleeps not on his arms ; 
When winds and waves are raging round, 
The steersman at his helm is found ; 
Each, to the post assigned him true, 
Performs the work he has to do. 

But when the heart as yet has known 
No culture ; each good plant unsown, 
Or choked with many a noxious weed 
That overtops the nobler seed ; 



PARAPHRASE. 31 

When now the harvest is at hand, 
And at the gate the reapers stand, 
The Christian husbandman we view 
Sit listless, having nought to do. 

When man's worst foes, the world and sin, 

And snares without him and within 

The fortress of his peace assail, 

And Satan's powers e'en now prevail ; 

The Christian soldier we behold 

His arms upon his bosom fold, 

And idly some vain toy pursue ; 

For he, forsooth, has nought to do. 

When the poor weather-beaten soul 
Is drifting amid rock and shoal, 
Heaven's wrath above, and far beneath 
The yawning gulf of Hell and death, 
That very hour in sleep or play 
The Christian steersman dreams away ; 
Unconscious, 'mid a thoughtless crew, 
That he or they had aught to do. 



32 PARAPHRASE. 

Ye senseless fools — Awake ! awake ! 
And fatal slumber from you shake ! 
Think how their seed-time they employ 
Who hope at last to reap in joy : 
Be strong and gird you to the fight ; 
Be wise and steer your bark aright ; 
Lest ye too late your folly rue, 
And find that you had much to do. 

May, 1829. 



ON. THE EPIPHAXL 



SUGGESTED BY THE CONCLUDING PARAGRAPH OF BISHOP 
HOENE'S SEB3ION ON THAT FESTIVAL. 



Obedient to the leading Star, 
The Eastern sages came from far 
Their infant Saviour to adore, 
And at his feet their offerings pour. 



For us that Star still beams as bright, 
And guides us with its heavenly light, 
Where all who seek Him still may find 
The promised Saviour of Mankind. 



34 ON THE EPIPHANY. 

And though nor incense, myrrh, nor gold, 
Be our's to give, as their' s of old, 
Presents as meet we still may bring ; 
Nor will He slight the offering. 



For faith, like gold that hath been tried 
And in the furnace purified, 
More precious in his sight will shine, 
Than richest gifts from Ophir's mine. 



To Him a tribute far more dear 
Will be the penitential tear, 
That dims the contrite sinner's eye, 
Than costliest myrrh of Araby. 



Then, like sweet incense, prayer, and praise, 
And pure devotion's kindling blaze, 
From the heart's altar shall arise, 
The best and holiest sacrifice. 



ON THE EPIPHANY. 35 

While o'er the soul, Joy, Peace, and Love, 
And Hope still fixed on things above, 
Their balmy fragrance shed abroad, 
And make it fitter for its God. 






HYMN FOE NEW YEAE'S DAY. 



Another year its course has sped : 
How awful is the thought ! 

'Tis as a warning, from the dead, 
Home to each bosom brought. 

Of those on whom that opening year 
"With life's fair promise shone, 

Whom then we saw around us here, 
How many now are gone ! 

Gone to the grave, and ere that sun, 
Whose race begins to-day, 

His annual circle shall have run, 
We too may be as they. 



HYMN FOR NEW YEARNS DAY. 37 

Great God, whose overruling will 

Our being doth sustain, 
Grant, since thy mercy spares us still, 

It may not be in vain ! 

Oh ! grant that w T hen this morn again 

The rolling months bring round, 
The tree now spared, if spared till then,. 

Less worthless may be found. 

So teach us, Lord, our fleeting days 

To number, so improve, 
That we may turn to wisdom's ways, 

And seek the things above. 



Jan. 1st. 1840. 



HYMN FOE CHILDREN. 



Lokd, who once thine arms unfolding, 
Infants didst receive and bless, 

Us thy children here beholding, 
Aid, oh ! aid our helplessness ! 

Be our refuge and defence ; 

Wash our souls in innocence ! 

Happy they whom thou hast planted, 
Lord, thy hallowed courts within : 

Shelter there alone is granted 
From a world of woe and sin ; 

There, secure from every ill, 

God's own plants shall prosper still. 



HYMN FOR CHILDREN. 39 

As the palm-tree by the fountain 
Heavenward lifts its towering head ; 

As the cedars of the mountain 

All around their branches spread ; 

Such may we, oh Lord ! be found 

Flourishing in holy ground. 

Through all changes and all chances 

May our leaf feel no decay, 
May we still, as age advances, 

Ampler fruits bring forth each day ; 
Strengthened still with vigour new, 
Still refreshed with heavenly dew. 



April, 1827. 



HYMN FOR CHILDREN. 



Fah from the paths of sin, 

Which else he might have trod, 

Blest ! who, these hallowed walls within, 
Is early brought to God. 

He, through life's various day 

"Where'er his lot be east, 
Trained from the first in wisdom's way, 

Shall keep it to the last. 

In that shall he abide 

Through sunshine, storm, or shade ; 
God's Holy Spirit for his guide, 

His comfort and his aid. 



HYMN FOR CHILDREN. 41 

That book of perfect truth, 

Which first was taught him here, 

Shall guard him in the morn of youth, 
In age's gloom shall cheer. 

And when around his head 

Life's last dim shadows close, 
He shall not fear the grave's dark bed ; 

'Twas thence his Saviour rose. 



HYMN FOE CHILDREN 



Lord ! who once from Heaven descending, 
Lost mankind didst seek and save ; 

Us in our distress befriending, 
Grant the shelter which we crave. 

From a sinful world we flee, 

Shepherd of our souls, to Thee. 

Israel's shepherd ! Thou wilt lead us 
Comfort's living streams beside ; 

There in pastures green wilt feed us, 
And for all our wants provide ; 

Happy they who hear thy voice, 

And beneath thy staff rejoice. 



HYMN FOR CHILDREX. 43 

From the great destroyer's power, 

From trie roaring lion's rage, 
Seeking whom he may devour, 

Lord protect our tender age ; 
Day and night be near us still, 
Guarding us from every ill. 

From the arts that would allure us, 
From the toils that would ensnare, 

Thou, who slumberest not, secure us 
By thy ever- watchful care ; 

And, if e'er from Thee we roam, 

Fetch, oh fetch, the wanderer home. 

And at last, our perils ended, 

Take us to that blessed fold, 
Where the flock Thou here hast tended, 

Shall in Heaven thy face behold, 
And with hymns of praise adore, 
Christ, their shepherd, evermore. 



July. 1627. 



HYMN FOE CHILDBED 



When first God's word to Samuel came 

Calling his chosen child by name, 

Prompt and obedient to the word, 

He quickly learnt to know the Lord, 

And, faithful from his earliest years, 

" Speak Lord," he cried, "thy servant hears." 

Like that good servant of thy choice, 
Lord teach us too to know thy voice ; 
And, when within these hallowed walls 
That voice to us each Sabbath calls, 
With spirit meek, and heart sincere, 
Give us, thy children, grace to hear. 



HY31JN" FOR CHILDREN. 45 

If, when the tempter shall essay 
To draw our heedless youth astray, 
Some still small voice, our hearts within, 
Shall softly whisper, " flee the sin", 
That solemn warning let us fear ; 
'Tis God who speaks, and we must hear. 

Oft as thy table shall be spread, 

And Thou, whose blood for all was shed, 

E'en us hereafter shalt invite 

To share that sweet and holy rite ; 

May we, in humble faith, draw near, 

Nor e'er in vain thy bidding hear. 

So, when life's closing scene is nigh, 

And soon or late with sudden cry 

To meet the Bridegroom we are called ; 

In that dread moment unappalled, 

With Faith's bright lamp our souls to cheer, 

The awful summons we shall hear. 



1840. 



HYMN 



FOR THE OPENING OF WHEELOCK CHURCH, CHESHIRE. 
Aug. 30, 1837. 



Wilt Thou indeed vouchsafe, oh Lord, 

Within these humble courts to dwell, 
In gorgeous Salem once adored 

The mighty God of Israel ? 
Sure Thou, whose spirit fills all space, 

These narrow limits wilt disdain, 
Thou whom e'en Heaven thy dwelling place, 

The Heaven of Heavens may not contain ! 



47 



Yet Thou hast said, where two or three 

Are met together in thy name, 
Thou in the midst of them wilt be ; — 

Thy parting promise, Lord, we claim : 
And oh, when to the throne of grace 

Our prayers and praises hence shall rise, 
Hear Thou from heaven thy dwelling place, 

Nor scorn the simple sacrifice ! 

When here on bended knee we fall, 

With contrite hearts our sins confess, 
And on thy holy spirit call, 

To aid us in our helplessness ; 
Then turn not from us, Lord, thy face, 

In whose blest light alone we live ; 
But from yon heaven, thy dwelling place, 

Look down in mercy, and forgive ! 

When here thy holy word is read, 
Teach us its truth and power to feel ; 

And when thy blessed board is spread, 
Oh ! make us worthy there to kneel. 



48 HYMN. 

In every act still give us grace 

To please Thee in this House of Prayer, 
Till Thou to Heaven, thy dwelling place, 

Shalt bid us come, and serve Thee there. 



DOMESTIC. 



TO 1IT WIFE, 



Here, mid the friendly quiet of these shades, 
Whose scenes remote no worldly care invades, 
Where the calm soul, while all around inspires 
Pure joy and peace, within itself retires, 
Like some lone miser, o'er its bliss to brood, 
And undisturbed sum up its store of good : 
With time to think, and leisure to be wise, 
Here my full happiness I feel and prize ; 
Wife of my bosom ! Nor wilt thou too fail 
With grateful voice this hallowed morn to hail. 
Four happy years, since this auspicious day 
Our union sealed, have swiftly passed away : 
Yet in no transient pleasures have they flown. 
But rich in blessings which are still our own. 



52 TO MY WIFE. 

By me at least of all the circling year 

Well may this morn be held supremely dear ; 

Well may my bosom with such transports glow, 

Conscious how much of bliss to it I owe. 

For thou art mine ; but when I daily see 

Thy noble gifts devoted all to me, 

My wishes all preferred before thy own, 

And all thy tastes conformed to mine alone ; 

See thee for me the world's attractions scorn, 

And those gay scenes thou wouldst so well adorn ; 

And here content, without a wish to roam, 

Place all thy happiness in me and home ; 

Such love unbounded, in despair I say, 

How can I e'er deserve, or how repay? 

My grateful bosom would, but cannot, speak ; 

Oh then believe, although my words be weak, 

And these poor lines but feebly can express 

How much I feel, I do not feel the less. 

When He, the sovereign Lord of life and light, 
Just though mysterious in his ways, my sight 
With dim suffusion veiled, e'en then I felt 
And owned the chastening blow in mercy dealt ; 



TO MY WIFE. 53 

Yes, even then wert thou designed to be, 

Thou best of women, more than sight to me. 

If great my loss, Heaven's bounty was as great, 

For thou wert given that loss to compensate ; 

And all those gentle aids by thee employed 

With ceaseless love so well supply the void, 

That, half in doubt if void there yet be left, 

I oft inquire, of what am I bereft r 

My friend, companion, monitress, and guide, 

At home, abroad, my happiness, my pride ; 

Thou dearest creature e'er on man bestowed, 

To strew with flowers life's long and chequered road; 

Oh mayst thou still upon my steps attend, 

My guardian angel, to my journey's end ! 

Be mine the while, whene'er returning May 
With new-blown hawthorn crowns this festal day, 
In simple numbers unadorned with art, 
To pour the tribute of a faithful heart ; 
And, though I ne'er may merit, strive to prove 
At least I know the value of thy love. 

Bradwall, May 24th, 1825. 



THE TWENTY-FOUETH OF MAT. 



What, here again, good twenty-fourth of May ! 
Not that I e'er can see thee with regret, 
But, since in pleasant Bradwall last we met, 

It seems to me but as the other day ; 

So rapidly the year has rolled away. 

And, sooth to speak, by various causes let, 
Thou find'st me unprepared to pay my debt, 

The promised tribute of an annual lay ; 

But, wouldst thou kindly condescend to stay 
Thy flight an instant, I will pay thee yet. 
How much I owe thee I can ne'er forget, 

And still I love my lawful debts to pay : — 
Now count my lines, I'll stake my credit on it, 
You'll find fourteen ; and fourteen make a sonnet. 

1826. 



TO MY WIFE 

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF MY WEDDING DAY. 



Another year its course has run ; 

And on this happy day, 
Struggling through clouds, once more the sun 

Has shed its genial ray. 
For still all other days above 

This morn shall ever shine ; 
This day first made thee mine, my love, 

This day first made thee mine. 

All uninvoked the ready muse 

Takes up her wonted strain, 
With joy the pleasing task renews, 

And tunes the lyre again. 



56 TO MY WIFE. 

Her pledge impatient to redeem 
She pours the rapturous line, 

And hails, exulting in the theme, 
The day which made thee mine. 

What though no friends in social glee 

My festive board surround, 
Nor with libations full and free 

The votive glass be crowned ; 
Less pure would glow my bosom, fired 

With wassail and with wine, 
Than by the simple thought inspired — 

This day first made thee mine. 

'Tis said the gifts we dearly prize 

When first they are our own, 
Too oft unthankful we despise 

By use familiar grown. 
Yet think not thee I prize the less, 

Or would for worlds resign; 
No ! I can never cease to bless 

The day which made thee mine. 



TO MY WIFE. 57 

And tho' since first I called thee mine 

Six summers now are past ; 
And fools to wedded bliss assign 

A term which may not last ; 
Think not that to my latest year 

My love will e'er decline ; 
No ! time wilj. but the more endear 

The day wdiich made thee mine. 

Unmingled good was ne'er bestow T ed 

On Pilgrims here below ; 
All must alike pursue their road 

Through chequered w r eal and w r oe. 
But thou w ert given to cheer my way ; 

Then will I ne'er repine, 
But still draw comfort from that day 

When first I called thee mine. 

The dearest wife e'er sent by heaven 

Unworthy man to bless, 
The sweetest children ever given 

To crow r n that happiness, 



58 TO MY WIFE. 

The happiest home love ever knew, — 
These blessings all combine 

To bid me hail with homage due 
The day which made thee mine. 

Since then so large a share of good 

To this dear day I owe, 
Well may my Soul with gratitude 

To bounteous Heaven o'erflow : 
And well all other days above 

May this blest morn so shine ; 
This day first made thee mine, my love, 

This day first made thee mine. 

May 24th, 1827. 



SOMET. 



As amid Afric's sandy wastes, the sight 
Of green Oasis yields a sweet relief 
To the spent traveller ; so, 'mid scenes of grief, 
Where all has for a while been wrapt in night, 
The spirit hails with joy one spot more bright, 
Seeking from gloomy thought a respite brief, 
And life's dark volume still has one fair leaf 
To which fond memory turns with fresh delight. 

To thee, and me, my love ! that radiant spot, 
And that fair leaf is this auspicious day, 

Which, or for good or ill, first linked our lot 
In one : — Then let us, e'er it pass away, 
Grateful confess, to it and Heaven we owe, 
'Mid countless blessings else, our comfort too in woe. 

May 24th, 182SL 



EVENINGS AT HOME. 



I iiOYE, for I have known and tried, 
The joys which friendship can divide; 
The pleasures of the social board 
To me a rich repast afford ; 
Not that unworthy gross delight 
Which springs from pampered appetite, 
But that pure banquet of the mind 
Where the light play of wit refined, 
And conversation's sparkling flow, 
And the raised spirits' generous glow, 
Shed round the festive scene a charm 
Which e'en the dullest soul might warm. 



EVENINGS AT HOME. 61 

But yet to me more grateful far, 
And sweeter beyond all compare, 
The evenings of that dear, dear home, 
From which my heart would never roam ; 
With one beloved companion spent 
In chastened joy and calm content, 
All in one even tenour past, 
And each as happy as the last. 



Our frugal meal dispatched with speed, 
To crown it no desert we need, 
Save what our children best supply, 
Themselves our highest luxury. 
Yes, in their prattle and their play, 
Their merry tongues and spirits gay, 
There is a feast that never fails : — 
Then come the oft repeated tales, 
Which from its unexhausted stores 
Their Mother's ample memory pours, 
Of talking birds, and singing trees, 
And Sindbad's travelled histories, 



62 EVENINGS AT HOME. 

And whatsoe'er has else been told 
Of wonderful, in days of old : 
Enchanting all ; yet none surpass 
That maiden's slipper, which of glass 
Her fairy gossip wrought, and none 
Thy cat, immortal Whittington. 
But if perchance a call to bed 
Cut short the imperfect story's thread, 
The eager listners straight obey, 
And at the summons bound away 
Without a murmur, though with sorrow, 
Compounding for the rest to-morrow. 

But other pleasures now ensue, 
For ever various ever new, 
In some instructive volume found 
To me, in mute attention bound, 
By her made vocal ; on whose tongue 
With fresh delight I still have hung ; 
Its gentle tones distinct and clear 
So sweetly meet the listening ear. 
Nor idle lies her needle by 



EVEXIXGS AT HOME. 63 

The while, but still its task doth ply ; 
Beneath her eye the pattern grows, 
The jasmin or the mimic rose ; 
Unless some homelier work demand 
The labour of her useful hand : 
Unrivalled gift ! with perfect skill 
Such twofold, office to fulfill; 
As if, by some kind providence, 
A double portion of that sense 
Which is to me in part denied, 
Were for my sake to her supplied. 

Oh, how unbounded is their pleasure, 
Whom Heaven has blest with taste and leisure, 
If not profoundly to explore 
The depths of philosophic lore, 
Yet like the bee at large to stray, 
And lightly o'er the surface play ! 
Stealing a sweet from every flower, 
Which decks fair learning's varied bower. 
So we, as fancy prompts us, chuse 
The ancient or the modern muse ; 



64 EVENINGS AT HOME. 

Now listen to some traveller's tale, 
Now with some bold adventurer sail ; 
Thee, sober History, oft we woo^ 
Charming with interest ever new ; 
Or, more attractive still to me, 
Thy handmaid sweet Biography ; 
Or haply thou mayst please us best 
In novel-guise by fiction drest, 
Such as of late thou hast been seen 
Too oft with too seductive mien ; 
And, if yon Wizard of the North 
Have sent again his spirit forth, 
As now, to fascinate once more 
The w T orld so often charmed before, 
With transports which no words may tell, 
We yield us to the witching spell. 



Yet may we not forget to turn, 
Admonished by the bubbling urn, 
To where those cups our leisure wait, 
" Which cheer but not inebriate, " 



EVENINGS AT HOME. 65 

Grateful at once to scent and taste ; 
We linger o'er the loved repast, 
And still, with sweet discourse between, 
Quaff the delicious draught serene. 

Xor seldom, ere our evening end, 
Variety's sweet charms to blend, 
To music's captivating power 
We dedicate the closing hour : 
Whether my humour more incline 
To Handel's lofty strain divine, 
Or learn' d Corelli better please, 
Or Haydn's enchanting harmonies, 
Or Graun sublime, or Purcell bold, 
Or he whose magic numbers hold 
O'er every chord that sways the heart 
Resistless empire — great Mozart. 

And ever, ere we seek repose, 
With solemn rite our day we close, 
And with humility profound, 
Our little household gathered round, 



66 EVENINGS AT HOME. 

To the great Author of all good 

We bend in holy gratitude ; 

And from whate'er by night might harm 

Implore the shelter of His arm. 

That evenings such as these are mine, 
My own dear wife, the gift is thine ; 
And, since to me such first were known, 
This day, eight happy years have flown. 
This day then will I ever bless, 
From which I date such happiness ; 
This day by me shall ne'er be past 
Unsung, unhonoured ; till at last, 
Tired with its oft repeated chime, 
Thou bid me cease the endless rhyme.. 

May 2UK 1829. 



ON THE SECOND BIRTHDAY OF J. H. L, 



Dear mother of my darling boy, 

For him you ask the lay, 
And bid me with a song of joy 

Salute this happy day ; 
'Tis well ! For can a fitter strain 

A rhyming sire employ ? 
Then welcome, welcome, once again. 

The birthday of my boy ! 

Since first those laughing eyes of his 

Exulted in the light, 
Two years of calm domestic bliss 

Have winged their rapid flight. 



68 ON THE SECOND BIRTHDAY 

And oh ! if earthly happiness 

Is e'er without alloy, 
'Tis then, my love, when we caress 

Our first-born darling boy. 

Yes ! when that noble mien, that eye 

Intelligent we view, 
That well-knit form's fine symmetry, 

That fair cheek's healthful hue ; 
And hear the music of that voice, 

Each note awakening joy, 
Well may our thrilling hearts rejoice, 

In such a lovely boy. 

To hear his lisping tongue combine, 

Strange phrase in sweetest tone, 
While, half by sound and half by sign, 

He makes his meaning known ; 
To mark, as he with bounding pace 

Pursues some favourite toy, 
Activity, and strength, and grace 

United in our boy ; 



OF J. H. L. 69 

Reflected in his features fair, 

To trace his gentle mind ; 
To see good humour smiling there, 

With each affection kind ; 
Each hour to watch new charms unfold ; — 

These pleasures ne'er can cloy ; 
Some thirst for honour, some for gold, 

^ty treasure is my boy. 

Should they who scoff at joys like these 

The sportive mimic see 
Invent a thousand ways to please, 

With never failing glee ; 
Now bold, and now affecting fear, 

With playful archness coy ; 
How would they check the cynic sneer, 

And envy me my boy ! 

As with his gentle lips he presses 

His infant sister's cheek, 
And o'er her hangs with soft caresses, 

And looks which fondness speak ; 



70 ON THE SECOND BIRTHDAY 

Cold were that heart, which such pure sight 

Of love could not enjoy ; 
Think then how rapturous our delight, 

Whose own is that sweet boy. 

My child ! oh couldst thou ever be 

Spotless, as now thou art ; 
From sorrow and from care as free, 

As pure, as gay of heart ! 
But, since to trouble all are born, 

Since ills must all annoy, 
And clouds may darken life's bright morn 

Now opening on our boy ; 

Hear, gracious Heaven, a father's prayer ; — 

Be Thou his guardian still ; 
In danger keep ; in sickness spare ; 

And shield from every ill ! 
But chief in youth's more trying hour, 

When pleasure's arts decoy, 
And passions urge with headstrong power, 

Protect our darling boy ! 



OF J. H. L, 71 



And if, as on our child we gaze, 

Our hearts too proudly swell, 
If our fond hopes too high we raise 

For one we love so well ; 
Oh ! let no blight of bitterness 

Those visions quite destroy, 
But ever give us cause to bless 

The birthday of our boy ! 

Feb. 14th, 1825. 



SOMET 

ON FIRST TAKING HIS ELDEST CHILD TO CHURCH. 



Lord ! to thy hallowed courts when late I brought 
My child, to learn how Thou wert worshipped there, 
And marked him lift his little hands in prayer ; 
And, in those holy words Thyself hast taught, 
Amid the general murmur feebly caught 
From time to time upon my listning ear 
His gentle voice its part spontaneous bear ; 
'Twas more than fancy, sure, that waked the thought, 

The rapturous thought, that in the sacrifice 
Which then ascended to the throne of Grace 
My boy's sweet orisons might find a place, 

And mount like morning incense to the skies : 
Grateful to Thee, who still dost strength ordain 
From childhood's guileless lips, and hearts that 
know no stain. 



October, 1827. 



SOXXET. 



Departed spirit of my darling child ! 

Watch, if blest spirits have such power, (for thou 

Art sure a ministering Angel now, 
From earthly taint all pure and undefiled,) 
Watch o'er thy once loved parent, whispering mild 

To his sad bosom peace, and teach him how 

Submissive to the will of Heaven to bow. 
And oh ! forgive, if in the transports wild 

Of his first grief, he would have kept thee here, 

In life's sweet prime so lovely and so dear; 
Yet in far other place than this, through Him 

Who therefore called thee hence, more meet to 
dwell, 
And there to chaunt, 'mid choiring Cherubim, 

Those hymns of praise thou lov'dst on earth so 
well. 

March, 1S37. 



ON A YOUNG LADY 



SINGING THE EVENING HYMN IN HER SLEEP, A SHORT 
TIME BEFORE HER DEATH. 



Stretched on the restless bed of pain, 

To slow disease a prey, 
Courting reluctant sleep in vain 

The gentle sufferer lay. 

The tedious night was well-nigh spent, 

When o'er her weary soul, 
As by some pitying angel sent, 

A balmy slumber stole. 



OX A YOUNG LADY. 75 

Still by that bed with tender care 

The wakeful mother staid, 
And poured to Pleaven her secret prayer 

For comfort and for aid. 



When hark ! upon her startled ear, 

Amid the deep repose 
Of the still chamber, soft and clear 

A vocal strain arose. 



It was that melody divine 
In which, at evening hour, 

Their spirits pure the good consign 
To Heaven's protecting power. 



Yes ! from those lips, in slumber deep 
Now sealed, the numbers came ; 

As though not e'en the body's sleep 
Could quench devotion's flame. 



76 ON A YOUNG LADY. 

The mother heard, and knew it well 
That sweet and solemn air ; 

But sad upon her heart it fell, 
And filled it with despair. 



To her of happier days gone by, 
Of health and joy it spoke, 

And of too faithful memory 
Each thrilling chord awoke. 



And then the thought, oft checked in vain, 

Resistless on her rushed, 
How soon the lips which poured that strain 

For ever should be hushed. 



With agony it wrung her soul, 
And down her woe-worn cheek 

The scalding tears began to roll, 
Her heart seemed nigh to break. 



ON A YOUNG LADY. 

Tis done ! the dreaded hour is past; 

Fond mother, weep no more ! 
The child is gone to rest at last, 

Her trial here is o'er. 



And now perhaps a seraph bright 
She chants with saints above, 

As erst on earth was her delight, 
Her hymns of praise and love. 



May, 1828. 



EPISTLE TO MY FATHER, ON HIS BIRTHDAY. 

Dec. 29, 1829. 



Tho' thou, our Patriarch Host, art far away, 
Whose wont it was, on this returning day, 
Year after year to spread the festal board 
With each rich offering of the season stored, 
And gather round thee many a joyous guest, 
Kindred and friends, and all who loved thee best ; 
Yet shall the day not pass unhonoured by, 
Nor good old use, by time half hallowed, die. 
Still shall the festal board be spread, and still 
Who love thee best their places there shall fill ; 
Still as of old the sparkling glass be crowned 
With votive bumpers, and the wish go round 
(By fervent lips pronounced from hearts sincere) 
That health; and every blessing which can cheer 



EPISTLE TO MY FATHER, 79 

The gently sloping path of life's decline. 
My dear, my honoured father, may be thine. 



While thus, with social rites and festive mirth, 
We hail the day that gave a parent birth, 
How do our grateful hearts within us glow 
Warm with the sense of what to thee we owe ! 
But not to us alone, the partial few 
From whom such tribute first and chief is due, 
Is the remembrance of thy worth confined ; 
In many a heart besides it rests enshrined. 
For thine the pow T er to soften pain, to ease 
And boldly grapple with each fierce disease, 
To lengthen life, and mitigate, by skill 
And kindness joined, the sum of human ill ; 
Thine too no less that aspect all benign 
Which beamed with tenderest sympathy, and thine 
That cheerful voice which confidence bespoke, 
And in the sufferer's sinking soul awoke 
Hope, w T hich itself half wrought the promised cure, 
E'er art came in to make that promise sure. 



80 EPISTLE TO MY FATHER. 

Hence, in deep lines indelibly impressed, 
Thy memory lives in many a faithful breast, 
And long shall live, to every rank endeared, 
By high and low still honoured and revered. 
But chief the poor thy virtues shall proclaim, 
And grateful bless their good Physician's name. 
Oft, as they pass thy once loved threshold by, 
" This was his dwelling, " they shall say and sigh, 
" (Would it were yet so !) who ne'er closed his door, 
" When sickness sought admittance, on the poor ; 
" For us he still employed his noble art, 
" His sole reward his own approving heart. 
" Yet One there is who from His place above 
" Marks every act of charity and love ; 
" He saw, and shall requite the generous deed 
" Done to Himself, when done to those in need." 



Meanwhile to Brad wall's peaceful shades retired, 
Blest with that calm thy soul has long desired, 
To thee perhaps the busy past may seem 
The transient vision of a troubled dream ; 



ON HIS BIRTHDAY. 81 

No more in pent-up chariot, as of old, 
From morn to eve o'er rattling pavement rolled, 
No more condemned the same sad round to go. 
Day after day, of sickness and of woe, 
And draw with pain a suffocating breath 
In chambers tainted with disease and death 
Methinks I see trree now at early dawn, 
Pacing with active step thy favorite lawn, 
To tell thy flock, if haply all be there, 
And breathe the freshness of the morning air. 
Then o'er the distant fields I see thee stride 
With gun in hand, and setter at thy side, 
To seek the wild duck at the pool, or wake 
The whirring pheasant from the rustling brake. 
Or, should the recent gale a chance supply 
On woodcock rare thy skill once more to try, 
Another triumph shall thy brows adorn, 
And a third trophy crown the lucky morn. 



But other objects now thy care demand; 
Nor wilt thou deem an hour misspent, to stand 

G 



82 EPISTLE TO MY FATHER. 

And watch thy labourers, as beneath thine eve 

With cheerful toil the task assigned they ply. 

Whether it be some stagnant pool to drain, 

And spread the rich deposit o'er the plain ; 

Or level some old hedge, or raise a new. 

And bid the fence a better line pursue ; 

Or thro' some crowded copse to force a way, 

And on the smothered saplings let the day, 

Weed out the worthless, the more worthy spare, 

And give them room to breathe a freer air. 

How sweet the while, where'er thy footsteps tread, 

Where'er thou view'st the landscape round thee 

spread, 
To feel (and who the feeling shall arraign ?) 
Thyself the master of the wide domain ; 
No thriftless heir, by partial fortune spoiled, 
Of house and lands, for w r hich another toiled, 
For every rood of land thou call'st thine own 
Indebted to thyself and bounteous Heaven alone. 

Oft arm in arm with her, who still has been 
Thy best companion thro' life's chequered scene. 



OX HIS BIRTHDAY. 83 

With sauntering steps my fancy sees you stray 

To where yon smiling cottage skirts the way ; 

Along whose walls the pyracanthus spread 

In winter garlands hangs its berries red ; 

There pause awhile the pleasing sight to scan, 

Then entering, ask how fares the good old man ; 

And how he bears the rigour of the year, 

And if he lacketh aught, his age to cheer ? 

And draws our good Corycius towards his end ? 

Ah me ! could wish of mine his days extend, 

The hundredth year his lengthened life should 

crown 
Ere to the grave his silver locks went down ! 

But, should the lowering skies forMd to roam. 
As swiftly fly the busy hours at home ; 
While, with the love of ancient learning fired, 
Like classic Fox of public faction tired, 
You find in studies, dear indeed of yore, 
A charm and interest never felt before : 
Pleased to retrace, now free from all alloy, 
The well remembered lessons of the bov. 



84 EPISTLE TO MY FATHER. 

Whether on Ilion's bard your strength you try, 
Or better pleased with gentle Tityrus, lie 
Beneath the spreading beech, and hear his reed 
To pastoral song attuned, or martial deed ; 
Or warmed by Juvenal's indignant strain, 
Loathe, more than ever, luxury's baneful reign. 
And, more than ever, in the virtuous choice 
That bade thee quit our modern Rome rejoice, 
Nor wilt thou e'er thy best-loved task omit, 
To search the hidden stores of Sacred Writ, 
Pure as from holy penmen first it came, 
And light at Learning's lamp Devotion's flame ; 
To trace of word or phrase the genuine force, 
Lost by transmission, upwards to its source ; 
Draw forth each beauty, each dark passage clear, 
And be thyself thy own interpreter. 

Dear honoured parent, 'mid pursuits like these, 
In active leisure, and in studious ease, 
May the calm evening of thy well-spent day, 
Like some smooth current, gently glide away. — 
And oh ! whene'er this happy day comes round, 
May it still find thee as it now hath found, 



OX HIS BIRTHDAY. 85 

Blest with whatever can make retirement sweet, 
And shed a charm around thy loved retreat ; 
One dear companion, that retreat to share, 
Enhance each comfort and divide each care ; 
Health, and the means and spirits to enjoy 
Those simple pleasures which can never cloy ; 
With that best gift of Heaven, a cheerful mind, 
To every change that time may bring resigned ; 
Content on earth mixed good and ill to prove, 
In the strong hope of perfect bliss above. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



A FEAGMENT IN IMITATION OF POPE. 



So, (if great things may be compared with small,) 

Some drowsy fiddler at a midnight ball, 

Lulled by his own dull strains and well-marked 

time 
To sure returns of one expected chime ; 
(While frequent draughts of potent ale conspire, 
With late fatigue, to quell his minstrel fire,) 
Feels o'er each sense a growing stupor creep, 
Till his closed eyelids sink at last in sleep ; — 
Yet ceases not the strain, — the unwearied sound 
With method just prolongs its measured round ; 
For still, impelled by habit's mighty sway, 
The tuneful dreamer plays or seems to play ; 
Just to each string his practised fingers rove, 
And his curved elbow r moves, as wont to move ; 
The restless fiddlestick still plays its part, 
True to the precepts of its master's art; 
Th' unconscious crowd applaud the sprightly tone, 
And the man 's praised for quavers not his own. 



FBAGMMT OF A MOEAL EPISTLE. 



I know there are to whom the world appears 

To grow in folly as it grows in years ; 

Who think each age finds out, in crime more bold, 

New modes of sinning, or improves the old. 

Let the just Muse give praise where praise is due, 

So shall she seem to blame with justice too ; 

One vice at least has this our age redrest : 

Oh could our age as well reform the rest ! 

Time was, when fashion's fools would almost 
loathe 
The poor dull soul, who spoke without an oath : 
Mere affirmation could not credence gain ; 
Would you seem serious, take God's name in vain; 



FRAGMENT OF A NIGRAL EPISTLE. 91 

Oaths mark'd in repartee the lucky hit, 
Embellish' d narrative, and pointed wit. 
Xor epithets could strength or grace bestow, 
Which were not summon' d from the realms below. 
Through all discourse the impious folly ran, 
Till swearing formed the finished gentleman. 

Now, without blasphemy may men converse, 
Xor need, for talk, themselves or neighbours curse. 
The vulgar vice may still our ears appal, 
"Where draymen jostle, and where drunkards brawl ; 
But if, in better scenes, by use grown strong, 
It still maintains some empire o'er the tongue, 
Oh ! let the laws of polished life prevail, 
And fashion work a change where precepts fail ! 

Feb. SSnd, 1826. 



THE BANISHED TEA-TEAY'S COMPLAINT. 



A:n d is my doom resolved ? and am I chased, 
A wretched exile, from the board I graced ? 
And could not all my worth a respite gain, 
And twice ten years of service, borne in vain? 
Fond hope ! that such weak pleas could e'er pre- 
vail, 
When e'en the tears of fair Eliza fail ! 
Say, by what crime have I such fate deserved ? 
In what sad instance from my duty swerved ? 
Have I, unconscious of adhesive lard, 
Soiled the fair napkin I was meant to guard ? 
Or, faithless to the precious charge I bore, 
Dashed the frail china to the ruthless floor ? 
Such monstrous novelties has fashion wrought ; 
An honest servant banished for no fault ! 



THE BAXISIIED TEA-TRAY's COMPLAINT. 93 

Was it for this, the cunning artist's hand 

The graceful oval shaped, and then japanned r 

For this, with antic pencil did he trace 

The Indian landscape o'er my polished face ? 

Oh, had I been ignoble paper still, 

Unshaped, unpolished by the workman's skill, 

And in inglorious safety happier far, 

Or lined a trunk, or capped a sweetmeat jar ! 

Alas how changed ! with silver vases crowned, 

And painted porcelain ranged in order round, 

True to my post I waited on the fair, 

And each returning sun beheld me there : 

Xow in some corner am I rudely thrown, 

Or reared on kitchen shelf in secret moan : 

There, as I lay and wailed my hapless fate, 

(My yet unfinished woes to aggravate,) 

I heard the supercilious cook-maid say, 

" Thomas, we will not breakfast from a tray." — 

So servants act their lord's caprices o'er, 

And spurn the dog their masters spurned before. 

But oh, if woes like mine admit relief, 

Thoughts of revenge shall mitigate my grief ; 



94 THE BANISHED TEA-TRAY'S COMPLAINT. 

May all the ills that tea-tables torment 
Come and requite my unjust banishment ! 
May buttered toast in greasy streams distil ; 
May some unlucky hand the cream-jug spill ; 
May half-boiled eggs their broken sides o'erflow, 
And leave their yellow vestiges below ; 
The urn's ill-fitted tap ne'er cease to drop ; 
And coffee, from the biggin's gaping top, 
O'er the white damask pour its sable rills, 
And the swoln washtub swell the weekly bills ; 
The unprotected board be pierced with stains, 
And odious circles mock the footman's pains. 



ODE TO DEAKfESS. 



Fell tyrant of the human head,. 

Relax thy rigid chain, 
That holds fast bound in link of lead 

At once my ear and brain ! 
To brute Stupidity allied, 
Sure, Deafness, thou wert born of Pride ; 
'Twas she, I ween, that doomed the fall 
Of lank locks puritanical ; 
Thought curls, forsooth, too priggish ; wigs too grave ; 

Then with unsparing shears 

Laid bare her votaries' ears, 
And robbed them of the shield which prudent Nature 
gave. 



96 ODE TO DEAFNESS. 

Say, Deafness ! by what magic sleight 

Thou steal' st away our sense, 
And at the mind's best entrance quite 

Shut'st out intelligence ? 
Do unseen gnomes, at thy command, 
At the ear's portals take their stand; 
And, as they watch the concave round, 
Intercept the coming sound ? 
Or waxen globules, packed in close array, 

As vulgar quacks pretend, 

Their viscous influence blend, 
Obstruct the expected voice, and clog it on its 
way? 

Or say, quick summoned to thy aid, 

Do noxious vapours come ; 
And, as each fibre they pervade, 

Unbrace the tympanum ? 
Or frosts, obedient to thy call, 
The auditory nerves enthrall ; 
Or the rude winds, whistling by, 
Spoil the nice machinery ; 



ODE TO DEAFNESS 97 

Or damps collected through each secret pore, 

As inwardly they gush, 

In wild confusion rush, 
Hiss through the troubled head, and like a cataract 
roar? 

Oh Deafness ! — whencesoe'er thy power, 

What e'er thy secret be, 
Restore me to the social hour, 

Clear sense, and converse free ; 
And take again the moping mood, 
The tale, the jest half- understood, 
The misplaced laugh, the unmeaning eye, 
The question cross, the wrong reply. 
Shouts spent in air, and repetitions vain : — 

Fell tyrant of the head, 

Relax thy link of lead, 
And give to liberty my captive soul again ! 



TO MY TOOTH. 



Farewell, my tooth ! but oh ! ere yet we part, 
(Vile as thou seem'st, and useless as thou art.) 
I pause to think, though thy brief course be run 
And mine still lasts, how lately we were one. 
Bone of my bone, whate'er to thee gave pain 
Glanced like an arrow darting through my brain, 
Each nerve with sympathetic anguish thrilled, 
And all my shuddering frame with horror rilled : 
Bitter or sweet, through thrice ten years of life 
One common lot we had, like man and wife ; 
At the same board, at home, abroad, we fed, 
The costly banquet shared, or daily bread. 



TO MY TOOTH. 99 

But ah ! nor daily bread, nor banquet rare, 
Henceforth with me, good grinder, shalt thou share. 
For thee no more the savoury haunch shall smoke, 
Nor tempting turtle thy dull sense provoke ; 
No more, oh bliss ecstatic ! shalt thou lie 
In partridge wing engulphed, or woodcock's thigh; 
No more shalt water, as when erst in reach 
Glowed the rich nect'rine or alluring peach ; 
But, all thy revels o'er, thyself be cast 
A dainty morsel to the worm at last. 

But even-handed justice why arraign ? 

If dead to pleasure, thou art dead to pain. 

Thee from keen blasts thy fate shall now preserve, 

And the cold stream, poured heedless on thy nerve ; 

Ne'er shalt thou feel sharp springes through thee 

shoot, 
Nor the fierce throb, still tugging at thy root ; 
From hostile hand receive no buffet rude, 
Nor, set on edge, resent the codling crude ; 
Nor, mid plum-pudding, too securely rash, 
Against some lurking pebble blindly dash ; 



100 TO MY TOOTH. 

As ships in unknown seas, with sudden shock, 
Strike, split, and founder on some hidden rock. 



But thee, my tooth, no fatal violence, 
Seen or unseen, untimely hurried hence ; 
Whether some parent fond, to thwart thee loth, 
With cankering sweetmeats sapped thy early growth ; 
Or whether, as with all things else on earth, 
Corruption's seed sprang with thee at thy birth ; 
Like some fair maid, consumption's lingering prey, 
Long had I marked thee waste by slow decay : 
Then ineffectual proved all human skill 
To stay the progress of the growing ill ; 
Vain each nice art to great Ruspini known, 
Vain e'en thy magic waters, famed Cologne ; 
Then cures infallible mendacious failed, 
Nor powders, drops, nor essences availed, 
Nor antiseptic nor narcotic drug, 
Nor that great last resource, the golden plug ; — 
The golden plug awhile prolonged thy date, 
But gold itself must yield at last to fate, 



TO MY TOOTH. J 01 

Fate 7 before whom e'en mightiest monarchs bow ; 
Then why lament? Ah well, my tooth, might' st 
thou. 

Yet did my fostering care through many a year 
Preserve thee still, in weakness doubly dear ; 
As mothers love their sickliest children most, 
Of those less tender who more vigour boast, 
^liat though thy feeble frame I might not trust 
In dubious conflict with some veteran crust, 
Or the brown nut, impregnable of shell ; 
Yet still, my honest stump, thou serv'dst me well, 
The lighter labours of the board didst share, 
And what thou couldst wert zealous still to bear. 
But swifter now thy wasting powers decayed, 
Loose, and more loose, the nodding ruin swayed. 
Yet did no terrors on thy fall attend, 
No racking pains prognosticate thy end ; 
Xo lancet marked the place with hideous gash ; 
No torturing iron, with convulsive crash, 
And horrid wrench, and agonizing pang, 
Writhed from its socket thy tenacious fang ; 



102 TO MY TOOTH. 

Nor gaping wound proclaimed, nor streaming gore, 
Nor mangled jaw, the bloody business o'er. 
'Twixt my fore-finger pressed, and gentle thumb, 
Thou kindly parted' st from the yielding gum : 
The unconscious tongue scarce found the vacant 

spot, 
Nor knew the world, till now, that thou art not, 

October, 1820. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



DE SENE VEBONENSL 



CLAUDIAN. 



Felix, qui patriis aevum transegit in agris ; 

Ipsa domus puerum, quern videt ipsa senem ; 
Qui, baculo nitens in qua reptabat arena, 

Unius numerat saecula longa casse. 
Ilium non vario traxit Fortuna tumultu, 

Nee bibit ignotas mobilis hospes aquas. 



THE OLD IFAX OF VERONA, 



FROM CLAUDIAX. 



Blest who beyond his fathers' fields 
Through life has never cared to roam, 

To whom the self- same roof still yields 
From infancy to age a home. 

Whose steps, upon that very spot 

Where once he crawled, a staff now bears, 

Fond to retrace of that one cot 

The annals through a hundred years. 

In varied quest of distant schemes 
Him fortune never forced to stray, 

He never drank of unknown streams, 
A restless wanderer far awav. 



106 DE SENE VERONENSI. 



Non freta mercator tremuit, non classica miles, 

Non rauci lites pertulit ille fori ; 
Indocilis rerum, vicinse nescius urbis, 

Aspectu fruitur liberiore poli. 
Frugibus alternis, non consule computat annos ; 

Autumnum pomis, ver sibi flore notat. 
Idem condit ager soles, idemque reducit, 

Metiturque suo rusticus orbe diem ; 



THE OLD MAW OF V EBON A. 107 

Xo merchant, whom each swelling sea, 
No soldier, whom each blast of war 

Fills with alarm, no lawyer he 

Vexed with the hoarse and wrangling bar. 



In state affairs he boasts no skill, 
What cities are he never knew ; 

Enough, that Heaven's blue concave still 
Is free and open to his view. 



Others by consuls date the year, — 
He by alternate crops computes ; 

He knows 'tis spring when flowers appear, 
'Tis autumn when he culls his fruits. 



One field is his horizon's bound, 

Here dawns the sun, there sets his ray, 

"While, by the same unvaried round 
Of toil, he measures every day. 



108 DE SENE VERONENSI. 



Ingentem meminit parvo qui gramine quercurn, 

JEqusevumque videt consenuisse nemus : 
Proxima cui nigris Verona remotior Indis, 

Benacumque putat Littora Rubra lacum. 
Sed tamen indomitee vires, firmisque lacertis 

.Etas robustum tertia cernit avum. 
Erret, et extremos alter scrutetur Iberos ; 

Plus habet hie vitse, plus habet ille viae. 



THE OLD MAX OF VERONA. 3 09 

Yon spreading oak's enormous girth 

A slender sapling he has knov a, 
Both from one era took their birth. 

And both together old have grown. 

Verona's neighbouring town he deems 
Remote as swarthy India's shore, 

And Guarda's lake so distant seems, 
Not the Red sea itself seems more. 

Yet hath his vigour time defied, 

Still can his arm in toil engage ; 
While his son's sons behold with pride 

Their lusty grandsire's green old age, 

What then if some, the world to see, 

To fair Iberia may have strayed : 
On earth a longer sojourn he, 

A longer journey they have made. 



18-20. 



IL COME UGOUNO. 



DANTE, INFERNO, CANTO XXXIII. 



La bocca sollevo dal fiero pasto 
Quel peccator, forbendola a' capelli 
Del capo ch' egli avea diretro guasto : 

Poi comincio : tu vuoi ch' i' rinnovelli 
Disperato dolor che '1 cuor mi preme 
Gia pur pensando, pria ch' i' ne favelli. 

Ma se le mie parole esser den seme, 

Che frutti infamia al traditor ch' i' rodo ? 
Parlare e lagrimar vedrai insieme. 

P non so chi tu sie, ne per che modo 
Venuto se' qua giu : ma Fiorentino 
Mi sembri veramente, quand' i' t' odo. 

Tu de' saper ch' i y in '1 conte Ugolino, 
E questi 1' arcivescovo Ruggieri, 
Or ti diro perch' i' son tal vicino. 



THE STOEY OF THE COOT UGOLMO. 



DANTE. INFERNO. XXXIII. 



Fftox his foul feast that sinner raised his head, 
And wiped his blood-stained lips upon the hair 
Which crowned the mangled scalp on which he fed. 

" Would' st thou renew that anguish and despair/' 
He cried, " which but to think of makes me quail 
Ere yet my tongue the dreadful truth declare : 

Yet, could I hope my words would aught avail, 
This traitorous wretch with infamy to brand, 
Despite my struggling tears I'd tell my tale. 

I know not whom thou art, nor understand 
How to this place thou cam'st ; but if aright 
I hear, fair Florence is thy native land. 

Know then that I, Count Ugolino hight ; 

This, he who late the church of Pisa swayed ; 
Why now such bitter foes I will recite. 



112 IL CONTE UGOLIKO. 

Che per 1' effetto de' suo' ma' pensieri 
Fidandomi di lui io fossi preso, 
E poscia morto, dir non e mestieri. 

Pero quel che non puoi avere inteso, 
Cioe, come la morte mia fu cruda, 
Udirai e saprai se m' ha offeso. 

Breve pertugio dentro da la muda, 
La qual per me ha '1 titol de la Fame, 
E 'n che conviene ancor ch' altrui si chiuda, 

M' avea mostrato per lo suo forame 

Piu lune gia, quand' i' feci '1 mal sonno 
Che del futuro mi squarcio '1 velame. 

Questi pareva a me maestro e donno 
Cacciando ? 1 lupo e i lupicini al monto 
Perche i Pisan veder Lucca non ponno. 

Con cagne magre, studiose e conte, 

Gualandi con Sismondi e con Lanfranchi 
S'avea messi dinanzi da la fronte. 

In picciol corso mi pareano stanchi 
Lo padre e i figli, e con 1' agute scane 
Mi parea lor veder fender li fianch'. 

Quando fui desto innanzi la dimane. 



THE STORY OF COUNT UGOLINO. 113 

How by his wicked arts I was betrayed, 

And mine own misplaced confidence, then died 
His captive, all men know, nor need be said. 

But that, which mystery still and darkness hide, 
The horrors of that death which I endured 
Hear, and if causeless be my hate, decide. 

Thro' the small grate, whose bars that cell secured 
Which shall from me the name of Famine gain, 
Where many a victim yet shall be immured, 

Oft had I watched the pale moon wax and wane ; 
When a dire dream the veil of fate withdrew, 
And shewed the fearful future all too plain. 

This man, so dreamed I, did a wolf pursue 

And his poor cubs e'en to that mountain's base 
Which shuts out Lucca from the Pisans' view. 

Gaunt were his hounds and keen, of noble race, 
Gualandi and Sismondi, and with these 
Lanfranch', were foremost in the cruel chase. 

Their rage in vain the hunted father flees, 

In vain the sons ; they soon o'ertake their prey, 
And on their flank with fang remorseless seize. 

With horror I awoke, ere yet 'twas day, 

i 



114 IL CONTE UGOLINO. 

Pianger senti' fra '1 sonno i miei figliuoli 
Ch' eran con meco, e dimandar del pane. 

Ben se' crudel, se tu gia non ti duoli 

Pensando cid ch' al mio cor s' annunziava : 
E se non piangi, di che pianger suoli ? 

Gia eran desti, e Y ora s' appressava 
Che '1 cibo ne soleva esser addotto, 
E per suo sogno ciascun dubitava, 

Ed io senti' chiavar 1' uscio di sotto 
A 1' orribile torre : ond' io guardai 
Nel viso a' miei figliuoi senza far motto : 

I' non piangeva, si dentro impetrai : 
Piangevan elli ; ed Anselmuccio mio 
Disse : tu guardi si, padre : che hai ? 

Pero non lagrimai, ne rispos' io 

Tutto quel giorno, ne la notte appresso. 
Infin che 1' altro sol nel mondo uscio. 

Com' un poco di raggio si fu messo 
Nel doloroso carcere, ed io scorsi 
Per quattro visi il mio aspetto stesso ; 

Ambo le mani per dolor mi morsi : 



THE STORY OF COUNT UGOLINO. 115 

And heard my children from their troubled sleep 
(For with me there immured my children lay) 

Demanding bread. If thou a dry eye keep, 
Yet think the while on all that then assailed 
My boding heart ; say what can make thee weep ? 

They woke; and, now the hour which ne'er had failed 
To bring us food drew nigh, strange doubt and 

dread 
Came over each, so strong our dreams prevailed. 

But when the door which to our turret led 
I heard fast locked, with stedfast gaze I eyed 
My children's looks, but not a word I said. 

I wept not, for my soul was petrified ; 

But they did weep, and " Oh ! my father, why. 
Why look'st thou so ?" my dear Anselmo cried. 

Yet did I shed no tear, nor make reply. 

So passed the dreadful day, and so the night, 
Until the sun again in heaven was high. 

Then, when my cell a ray of struggling light 
Had entered, and my own dire looks I saw 
Given back from four sad aspects to my sight, 

My hands with anguish I began to gnaw ; 



116 IL CONTE UGOLINO. 

E quei pensando ch' i' '1 fessi per voglia 
Di manicar, di subito levorsi, 

E disser : padre, assai ci fia men doglia 
Se tu mangi di noi : tu ne vestisti 
Queste misere carni, e tu le spoglia. 

Quetami allor per non fargli piu tristi : 
Quel di e 1' altro stemmo tutti muti : 
Ahi dura terra, perche non t' apristi ? 

Posciache fummo al quarto di venuti, 
Gaddo mi si gittd disteso a' piedi, 
Dicendo : padre mio, che non m' ajuti ? 

Quivi mori : e, come tu mi vedi, 
Vid' io cascar li tre ad un' ad uno 
Tra '1 quinto di e '1 sesto : ond' i' mi diedi 

Gia cieco a brancolar sovra ciascuno, 
E tre di gli chiamai, poich' e ? fur morti : 
Poscia, piu che '1 dolor, pote '1 digiuno. 



THE STORY OF COUNT UGOLIXO. 117 

Which they misdeeming hunger's shameless deed, 
Started in horror from their bed of straw, 

And cried, " On us, dear father, wouldst thou feed 
Less grief it were : with flesh thou didst invest 
These wretched limbs ; now strip themin thy need." 

To soothe their feelings I my own supprest ; 

Two days we stood in speechless agony ; [rest ! 
Oh ! that the earth had yawned, and spared the 

But when the fourth morn came, with feeble cry 
His body at my feet poor Gaddo threw, 
Exclaiming, " Help me, father, or I die!" 

And then expired. As plain as me you view, 
I saw them all fall senseless, one by one^x 
Ere yet the sixth day dawned ; then blind I grew, 

And two days more the corpse of each dear son 
With groping arms I felt and called by name : 
Till at the last what grief had left undone 

Famine achieved, and death in pity came. 

April 1826. 



TASSO, GEEUSALEMME LIBEEATA. 



CANTO PRIMO. 



II. 

O Mttsa, tu die di caduchi allori 
Non circondi la fronte in Elicona, 

Ma su nel cielo infra i beati cori 
. Ai di s telle immortali aurea corona ; 

Tu spira al petto mio celesti ardori, 
Tu rischiara il mio canto, e tu perdona 

S' intesso fregi al ver, s' adorno in parte 

D' altri diletti, che de' tuoi, le carte. 

in. 
Sai che la corre il mondo, ove piu versi 

Di sue dolcezze il lusinghier Parnaso ; 
E che '1 vero condito in molli versi, 

I piu schivi, allettando, a persuaso. 
Cosi air egro fanciul porgiamo aspersi 

Di soavi licor gli orli del vaso : 



JERUSALEM DEL1YEEED, 



ii. 
Muse, whom no fabled Helicon inspires, 

Whose brows are with no fabled laurels bound, 
But thou, who sitt'st among the angelic choirs 

In heaven's high courts, with starry glory crowned, 
Oh ! fill my bosom with celestial fires ; 

Nor blame the bard, if haply he be found 
Some flowers of fancy with the truth to twine, 
And grace his song with other charms than thine. 

in. 

The world, thou know'st, by those is easiest led 

Who poesy's seductive arts employ; 
And oft o'er truths severe sweet numbers shed 

Charms which the most reluctant hearts decoy. 
So the cup's margin we with honey spread, 

Tendering loathed med'cine to some wayward boy; 



120 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

Succhi amari, ingannato, intanto ei beve ; 
E dalF inganno suo vita riceve. 

IV. 

Tu, magnanimo Alfonso, il qual ritogli 
Al furor di fortuna, e guidi in porto 

Me peregrino errante, e fra scogli 
E fra P onde agitato e quasi assorto ; 

Queste mie carte in lieta fronte accogli, 
Che quasi in voto a te sacrate P porto. 

Forse un di fia che la presaga penna 

Osi scriver di te quel ch' or n'accenna. 

v. 

E ben ragion, (s ? egli avverra che 'n pace 
II buon popol di Cristo unqua si veda, 

E con navi e cavalli al fero Trace 

Cerchi ritor la grande ingiusta preda) 

Ch' a te lo scettro in terra, o, se ti piace, 
L' alto imperio de J mari a te conceda. 

Emulo di GofTredo, i nostri carmi 

Intanto ascolta, e t' apparecchia alP armL 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 121 

The bitter potion he unconscious drains, 
And from the cheat new life and vigour gains. 

IV. 

Oh, great and good of soul ! Alphonso ! thou 
Whose arm first snatched from fortune's cruel hate 

Me, the world's wandering outcast, long ere now 
Whelm' d, but for thee, beneath the storms of fate : 

My humble lay (oh, with auspicious brow 
Accept the gift !) to thee I consecrate. 

To thee 'tis due, and soon what now I dare 

But darkly hint, I boldly shall declare. 

v. 

For should the day e'er come when peace shall join 
In one consenting league each Christian land, 

And Europe's monarchs shall again combine 
To ravish from the fierce barbarian's hand 

His ill got prey, the choice shall then be thine 
To head her armies, or her fleets command. 

Then let my song thy just protection claim, 

Thou future rival of great Godfrey's fame. 



GEEUSAIEMME LtBERATA. 



CAS TO TEBZO. 



I. 

Gia Y aura messaggiera erasi desta 
A nunziar che se ne vien 1' Aurora. 

Ella intanto s' adorna ; e Y aurea testa 
Di rose colte in paradiso inflora : 

Quando il campo, ch' all' arme omai s' appresta. 
In voce mormoraya alt a e sonora, 

E prevenia le trombe ; e queste poi 

Dier piu lieti e canori i segni suoi. 

ii. 
II saggio capitan con dolce morso 

I desiderj lor guida e seconda; 
Che piu facil saria svolger il corso 

Presso Cariddi alia volubil onda ? 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED, 



THE APPROACH TO THE HOLY CITY. 
I. 

And now the breeze, swift harbinger of day, 
Awakening, had announced the coming morn, 

Whose golden tresses, dripping from the spray, 
Fresh roses, culled in Paradise, adorn ; 

When from the camp, ere yet the trumpet's bray 
To arms had summoned, busy sounds w T ere borne 

Of preparation ; then the clarions woke, 

And in clear tones their joyful signal spoke. 

ii. 
Wise Godfrey sought with gentle hand to guide 

That fiery ardour, which to check was vain ; 
As soon might he control the boiling tide, 

Which round Charybdis roars ; as soon restrain 



124 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

O tardar Borea allor che scote il dorso 

Dell' Apennino, e i legni in mare afTonda. 
Gli ordina, gV incammina, e ? n suon gli regge 
Rapido si, ma rapido con legge. 

in. 
Ali a ciascuno al core, ed ali al piede ; 

Ne del suo ratto andar pero s' accorge. 
Ma quando il sol gli aridi campi fiede 

Con raggi assai ferventi, e in alto sorge, 
Ecco apparir Gerusalem si vede ! 

Ecco additar Gerusalem si scorge ! 
Ecco da mille voci unitamente 
-Gerusalemme salutar si sente ! 

IT. 

Cosi di naviganti audace stuolo 
Che mova a ricercar estranio lido, 

E in mar dubbioso, e sotto ignoto polo 
Provi V onde fallaci, e '1 vento infldo ; 

S' al fin discopre il desiato suolo, 
Lo saluta da lunge in lieto grido, 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 125 

The storm which lashes Apennine's bleak side 

And whelms the bark beneath the foaming main. 
His ranks he marshals, and his march arrays, 
And one sole will each eager movement sways. 

in. 
With wings, each foot, each bosom, zeal supplies, 

While, of their speed unconscious, on they bound. 
But when the sun had climbed the middle skies. 

Cleaving with fervid ray the arid ground, 
Jerusalem the straining eye espies ! 

And emulous, from every rank around, 
Jerusalem a thousand hands point out ! 
Jerusalem ! a thousand voices shout. 

iy. 

So when some daring and adventurous crew 
In quest of foreign regions spread the sail, 

And long thro' seas unknown their way pursue 
Struggling with treacherous wave, and adverse 
gale : 

If the long looked for land at last they view, 
With joyful cry from far the place they hail, 



126 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

E T uno all' altro il mostra ; e intanto oblia 
La noia e '1 mal della passata via. 

v. 

Al gran piacer che quella prima vista 
Dolcemente spiro nell' altrui petto, 

Alta contrizion successe, mista 
Di timoroso e reverente affetto. 

Osano appena d' innalzar la vista 
Ver la citta, di Cristo alb ergo eletto ; 

Dove mori, dove sepulto fue, 

Dove poi rivesti le membra sue. 

VI. 

Sommessi accenti e tacite parole, 

Rotti singulti e flebili sospiri 
Delia gente che 'n un s' allegra e duole, 

Fan che per Y aria un mormorio s' aggiri, 
Qual nelle folte selve udir si suole, 

S' awien che tra le frondi il vento spiri ; 
O quale infra gli scogli, o presso ai lidi, 
Sibila il mar percosso in rauchi stridi. 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 127 



And, each to other pointing out the shore, 
Their perils past remember now no more. 



Such thro' the Christian host the joy which spread, 
With such sweet transports every bosom glows. 

But soon these raptures passed, and in their stead 
Contrition deep and pious awe arose. 

Now towards yon place they scarce dare lift the head 
Which Jesus for his earthly dwelling chose ; 

There too for man Himself to death he gave, 

There rose again triumphant o'er the grave. 

VI. 

Low muttered sounds, and voices half suppressed, 
And quick convulsive sobs, and mournful sighs. 

Betray the deep emotions of each breast, 
And on the air in mingled murmur rise. 

So, thro' some tangled wood, the breathing west 
Amid the whispering foliage swells and dies : 

So on the jutting cliffs and shelving shore, 

In deep hoarse tone the sullen breakers roar. 



128 GERUSALEMME LIBE11ATA. 

VII. 

Nudo ciascuno il pie, calca il sentiero ; 

Che V esempio de' duci ogni altro move. 
Serico fregio o d' or, piuma o eimiero 

Superbo, dal suo capo ognun rimove ; 
Ed insieme del cor 1' abito altero 

Depone, e calde e pie lagrime piove. 
Pur, quasi al pianto abbia la via rinchiusa, 
Cosi parlando ognun se stesso accusa : 

Till. 

Dun que ove tu, Signor, di mille rivi 
Sanguinosi il terren lasciasti asperso, 

D' amaro pianto aim en duo fonti vivi 
In si acerba memoria oggi io non verso ? 

Agghiacciato mio cor, che non derivi 

Per gli occhi, e stilli in lagrime converso ? 

Duro mio cor, che non ti spetri e frangi ? 

Pianger ben merti ognor, s' ora non piangi. 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 129 

VII. 

With naked foot the holy ground they prest ; 

Each by example of his chieftain led : 
Gay silk, and gorgeous gold, tall plume and crest 

They cast with lowly reverence from their head. 
Nor less from secret pride did they divest 

Their inward thoughts, and tears of anguish shed ; 
And yet, as if their hearts to mourn refused, 
With keen reproach themselves they thus accused : 

VIII. 

" What, even here, where thine own precious blood 
"In ample stream, thou, Lord! for me didst spill, 

" Shall I of tears begrudge a scantier flood; 
" And shall my frozen heart, unsoftened still 

" By poignant memory, keep its stubborn mood, 
" Nor thro' mine eyes in bitter drops distil r 

" Melt, melt, my flinty soul, while yet you may ; 

" Eternal sorrow flee, and weep to-day !" 

Feb. 22nd, 1826. 



K 



GERUSALEMME LTBEBATA. 

CANTO QUARTO. 



IX 

Tartaeei numi, di seder piu degni 
La, sovra il sole ond' e Y origin vostra ; 

Che meco gia dai piu felici regni 

Spinse il gran caso in questa orribil chiostra ; 

Gli antichi altrui sospetti, e i fieri sdegni 
Noti son troppo, e l'alta impresa nostra. 

Or colui regge a suo voler le stelle, 

E noi siam giudicati alme rubelle. 

x. 

Ed in vece del di sereno e puro 
Del? aureo sol, degli stellati giri, 

W a qui rinchiusi in quest' abisso oscuro, 
Ne vuol ch' al primo onor per noi s' aspiri. 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED, 



THE ADDRESS OF SATAN. 
IX. 

Ye powers of Tartarus ! worthier far to reign 
Above that sun whence flows our high descent; 

Ye who with me from yonder happy plain 
Thrust down, in dungeon horrible are pent ; 

The tyrant's jealous hate and proud disdain 
Ye know, our enterprise, and its event. 

He now with sway despotic rules the sky, 

Us rebels calls and dooms to infamy : 

x. 

And, in the place of day serene and pure, 
Yon golden sun and all the starry choir, 

Has fixed our lot in this abyss obscure ; 
Xor must we more to our just rank aspire : 



132 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

E poscia (ahi quanto a ricordarlo e duro ! 

Quest' e quel che piu inaspra i miei martiri) 
Ne' bei seggi celesti a 1' uom chiamato, 
L' uom vile, e di vil fango in terra nato. 

XI. 

Ne cio gli parve assai ; ma in preda a morte ? 

Sol per fame piu danno, il figlio diede. 
Ei venne, e ruppe le tartaree porte, 

E porre oso ne' regni nostri il piede ; 
E trarne V alme a noi dovute in sorte, 

E riportarne al ciel si ricche prede, 
Vincitor trionfando ; e in nostro scherno 
L' insegne ivi spiegar del vinto inferno. 

XII, 

Ma che rinnuovo i miei dolor parlando ? 

Chi non a gia le ingiurie nostre intese ? 
E in qual parte si trovo, ne quando, 

Ch' egli cessasse dalP usate imprese ? 
Non piu dessi all' antiche andar pensando ? 

Pensar debbiamo alle presenti offese. 



THE ADDRESS OF SATAN. 133 

And then, (oh thought most painful to endure ! 

What on my burning head heaps coals of fire,) 
Has called up Man, to share those blest abodes, 
Vile, earth-born man, and made scarce less than gods : 

XI. 

All this too little seemed ; but, chief and worst, 
To work us woe, has given to death a prey 

His only Son : he came, hell's barriers burst, 
Within our realms his ensign dared display, 

And souls, of right our own, condemned, accurst, 
To heaven, a glorious prize, bore hence away, 

Triumphant conqueror, and proclaimed on high 

Scornful o'er baffled hell his victory. 

XII. 

But why repeat our wrongs, our pains revive ? 

To whom are these our injuries unknown? 
When did he not against our peace contrive, 

And in what place has not his hate been shewn ? 
Then be the past dismissed, and let us strive 

To fix our thoughts on present ills alone ; 



134 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

Deh ! non vedete omai come egli tenti 
Tutte al suo culto richiamar le genti ? 

XIII. 

Noi trarrem neghittosi i giorni e Y ore, 
Ne degna cura fia che ? 1 cor n' accenda ? 

E sofTrirem che forza ognor maggiore 
II suo popol fedele in Asia prenda ? 

E che Giudea soggioghi ? e che '1 suo onore, 
Che '1 nome suo piu si dilati e stenda ? 

Che suoni in altre lingue, e in altri carmi 

Si scriva, e incida in novi bronzi e in marmi ? 

XIV. 

Che sian gl' idoli nostri a terra sparsi ? 

Che i nostri altari il mondo a lui converta ? 
Ch' a lui sospesi i voti, a lui sol arsi 

Siano gl' incensi, ed auro e mirra offerta ? 
Ch', ove a noi tempio non solea serrarsi. 

Or via non resti all' arti nostre aperta r 
Che di tantf alme il solito tributo 
Ne manchi, e in voto regno alberghi Pluto ? 



THE ADDRESS OF SATAN. 135 

Ah ! see you not 'tis now his aim and end 
To force all nations at his shrine to bend ? 

XIII. 

And shall we then in sloth consume our hours 
And our dull hearts to vengeance ne'er inflame ? 

And shall his faithful people stretch their powers 
Through Asia's clime with still increasing fame ? 

Shall Salem bow to them her subject towers, 

And, more and more diffused, their Master's name 

Sound in new tongues ; and thro' the world be found 

On brass recorded, and in song renowned ? 

XIY. 

Shall we behold our idols all o'erthrown? 

And men our altars to his service turn, 
To him pay all their vows, to him alone 

Bring precious gold, and myrrh, and incense burn ? 
Shall they, where once our open temples shone, 

Mock our fallen arts and feeble sceptre spurn ? 
Of forfeit souls our wonted tribute fail, 
And desolation thro' our realms prevail r 



136 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

XV. 

Ah non fia ver ; che non sono anco estinti 
Gli spirti in noi di quel valor primiero, 

Quando di ferro e d' alte fiamm-e cinti 
Pugnammo gia contra il celeste impero. 

Fummo (io nol nego) in quel conflitto vinti ; 
Pur non manco virtute al gran pensiero. 

Ebbero i piu felici allor vittoria ; 

Rimase a noi d' invitto ardir la gloria. 

XVI. 

Ma perche piu v* indugio ? Itene, o miei 
Fidi consorti, o mia potenza e forze ; 

Ite veloci, ed opprimete i rei, 

Prima che '1 lor poter piu si rinforze : 

Prima che tutt' arda il regno degli Ebrei, 
Questa flamma crescente omai s' ammorze ; 

Fra loro entrate ; ed in ultimo lor danno 

Or la forza s' adopri, ed or Y inganno. 

XVII. 

Sia destin cio ch' io voglio : altri disperso 
Sen vado errando ; altri rimanga ucciso ; 



THE ADDRESS OF SATAN. 137 

XY. 

Forbid it, Hell ! that spirit is not fled, 
That pristine inborn spirit ne'er can die, 

Which, armed with fire and sword, our legions led 
Their strength with heaven's imperious lord to try. 

Grant in the shock our host discomfited ; 
Yet soared' our valour and our daring high : 

And, tho' to him the chance of victory fell, 

Our's is the praise of courage nought can quell. 

XVI. 

But why detain you ? Go, my faithful band ; 

Ye, to whose aid all strength and power I owe, 
Go ; and with speed, ere yet their strong right hand 

Become too mighty, crush the hated foe ; 
Arrest this flame, ere through Judea's land 

Spread far and wide beyond control it grow. 
Leave nought untried their ruin to achieve ; 
By force o'erwhelm them, or by fraud deceive. 

XVII. 

My will be fate ! let one self- exiled rove, 
And one in private strife untimely die : 



138 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

Altri in cure d' amor lascive immerso, 
Idol si faccia un dolce sguardo e un riso : 

Sia '1 ferro incontro al suo rettor converso 
Dalla stuol ribellante e 'n se diviso : 

Pera il campo e mini, e resti in tutto 

Ogni vestigio suo con lui distrutto. 



THE ADDRESS OF SATATV. 139 

This be entangled in the toils of love, 

And make an idol of some laughing eye : 

Others, a fiery band, let faction move 
"With rebel arms their leader to defy ; 

Perish their camp, their place no more be seen, 

And not a vestige tell they e'er had been ! 

May, 1825. 



GERUSALEMME L1BEBATA. 

CANTO QUARTO. 



IiXXXYI. 

Usa ogn' arte la donna, onde sia colto 
Nelle sue rete alcun novello amante : 

Ne con tutti, ne sempre un stesso volto 

Serba, ma cangia a tempo atti e sembiante. 

Or tien pudica il guardo in se raccolto ; 
Or lo rivolge cupido e vagante : 

La sferza in quegli, il freno adopra in questi, 

Come lor vede in amar lenti, o presti. 

LXXXVII. 

Se scorge alcun che dal suo amor ritiri 
L' alma, e i pensieri per difndenza affrene, 

Gli apre un benigno riso, e in dolci giri 
Volge le luci in lui liete e serene : 



JERUSALEM DELIVERED. 



THE AETS OF AB3IEDA, THE ENCHANTRESS 
IXXXYI. 

By countless arts, all-powerful to destroy, 
Fresh lovers still within her toils she drew ; 

For not towards all one mode did she employ, 
But various as the hearts she would subdue. 

From this she shrank, like one reserved and coy : 
On that a wandering glance lascivious threw ; 

And now the spur she used, and now the rein, 

To excite the slow to love, the quick restrain. 

LXXXVII. 

If one she marks who diffident retires, 
Checking his thoughts with cold timidity, 

With boldness him her gentle smile inspires, 
And the soft roll of her voluptuous eye. 



142 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

E cosi i pigri e timidi desiri 

Sprona, ed affida la dubbiosa spene : 
Ed ? inflammando 1' amorose voglie, 
Sgombra quel gel che la paura accoglie. 

LXXXYIII. 

Ad altri poi, ch' audace il segno varca, 
Scorto da cieco e temerario duce, 

De' cari detti, e de' begli occhi e parca 
E in lui timore e riverenza induce. 

Ma fra lo sdegno, onde la fronte e carca, 
Pur anco un raggio di pieta riluce : 

Si ch' altri teme ben, ma non dispera, 

E piu s ? invoglia, quanto appar piu altera. 

LXXXIX. 

Stassi talvolta ella in disparte alquanto 
E '1 volto e gli atti suoi compone e finge 

Quasi dogliosa ; e in fin su gli occhi il pianto 
Tragge sovente, e poi dentro il respinge : 

E con quest' arti a lagrimar intanto 
Seco mill' alme simplicette astringe ; 



THE ARTS OF ARMIDA. 143 

Thus, while she stimulates his dull desires, 

And bids him hope he may not vainly sigh, 
The kindling heat of love's resistless dart 
Dissolves the frost that binds his torpid heart. 

LXXXVIII. 

If some there -were who passed decorum's bound, 
Urged by that blind, rash guide, great Venus' son, 

Towards such, of gracious words more sparing found, 
A look commanding reverence she put on. 

Yet from that brow r severe, e'en w T hile she frowned, 
A ray of mingled pity sweetly shone ; 

Hence, awed, they yet despaired not ; and their flame 

The fiercer grew, the haughtier seemed the dame. 

LXXXIX. 

Now from the crowd would she withdraw apart, 
And in her look a pensive sorrow feign, 

And from her eye the sudden tear would start, 
Which she as quickly would suppress again. 

And thus to weep with her full many a heart 
Mistrustless of her guile she would constrain ; 



144 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

E in foco di pieta strale d' amore 
Tempra, onde pera a si fort' arme il core. 

xc. 
Poi, si come ella a quel pensier s' invole, 

E novella speranza in lei si deste, 
Ver gli amanti il pie clrizza e le parole, 

E di gioja la fronte adorna e veste ; 
E lampeggiar fa, quasi un doppio sole. 

II chiaro sguardo, e '1 bel riso celeste 
Sulle nebbie del duolo oscure e folte ; 
Ch' avea lor prima intorno al petto accoite. 

c. 

Ma mentre dolce parla, e dolce ride, 

E di doppia dolcezza inebria i sensi, 
Quasi dal petto lor 1' alma divide, 

Non prima usata a quei diletti immensi. 
Ahi crudo Amor ! ch' egualmente n' ancide 

L 5 assenzio e '1 mel, die tu fra noi dispensi : 
E d' ogni tempo egualmente mortali 

Vengon da te le medicine e i mali. 



THE ARTS OIT ARMIDA. 145 

Such powerful arms, such fatal weapons prove, 
By pity pointed, the keen shafts of love. 

xc. 
Then would she seem from these sad thoughts to fly, 

As if fresh hope within her breast had sprung ; 
And turn her step, with new-born gaiety 

Of words and aspect, towards the enamoured throng; 
As gleams the sunshine thro' the murky sky, 

E'en so her heavenly smile its radiance flung 
Athwart those clouds of sorrow dark and dense 
Collected on her brow, and chased them thence. 

c. 

While thus she softly speaks and sweetly smiles, 
The double charm intoxicates each sense, 

And every bosom of its heart despoils 
Unused before to rapture so intense. 

Oh, cruel love, which equally beguiles, 
Whether it gall or honey- dew dispense ; 

The wound, the cure, must to its victims prove 

Fatal alike, when both proceed from love. 

L 



146 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

CI. 

Fra si contrarie tempre, in ghiaccio e in foco, 
In riso e in pianto, e fra paura e spene, 

Inforsa ogni suo stato, e di lor gioco 
L'ingannatrice donna a prender viene. 

E s' alcun mai con suon tremante e fioco 
Osa parlando d' accennar sue pene, 

Finge, quasi in amor rozza e inesperta, 

Non veder Talma ne' suoi detti aperta. 

en. 
Oppur le luci vergognose e chine 

Tenendo, d' onesta s'orna e colora; 
Si che viene a celar le fresche brine 

Sotto le rose onde il bel viso infiora ; 
Qual neir ore piu fresche e mattutine 

Del primo nascer suo veggiam 1' aurora ; 
E '1 rossor dello sdegno insieme n' esce 
Con la vergogna, e si confonde e mesce. 

GUI. 

Ma se prima negli atti ella s J accorge 

D' uom, che tenti scoprir Y accese voglie, 



THE ARTS OF ARMIDA. 147 

CI. 

While various tempers thus, by frost and flame, 
By smiles and tears, by fears and hopes are swayed, 

With such disorder pleased, her cruel game 
By turns on all the fair deceiver played. 

But if with faltering tongue one dared to name 
His passion, all unconscious seemed the maid, 

As one in love's new ways unskilled and rude, 

Who of such language nothing understood : 

en. 

Or on the ground her bashful eyes she threw, 
While maiden modesty her cheeks o'erspread, 

Till 'mid the rose's all-involving hue 
The lily fair was lost and hid its head. 

Such in the fresh and early dawn we view, 
Aurora blushing from Tithonus' bed. 

Scorn too was in her look, and anger's flush 

Confused and mingled with that virgin blush. 

CHI. 

If one there were whom she perceived intent 
On apt occasion to declare his pain, 



148 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

Or gli s J invola e fugge, ed or gli porge 
Modo onde parli, e in un tempo il ritoglie. 

Cosi il di tutto in vano error lo scorge 
Stanco, e deluso poi di speme il toglie. 

Ei si riman qual cacciator eh' a sera 

Perda alfin V orma di seguita fera. 

CIY. 

Queste fur Y arti, onde mill' alme e mille 
Prender furtivamente ella poteo ; 

Anzi pur furon 1' arme, onde rapille, 
Ed a forza d' amor serve le feo. 

Qual meraviglia or fia, se V fero Achille 
D' amor fu preda, ed Ercole, e Teseo, 

3' ancor chi per Gesu la spada cinge 

L' empio ne' lacci suoi talora stringe ? 



THE ARTS OF AR3IIDA. 149 

Him she would now avoid, and now present 

The chance he sought, then straight recall again ; 

Till in the fruitless chase the day was spent, 
And he had found his hopes and labours vain ; 

Like weary hunter who, at close of day, 

Has lost all traces of his long- sought prey. 

CIY. 

Such were the arts by which the beauteous Dame 
Did, with nice skill, a thousand souls ensnare : 

Such were the arms by which she overcame 
And forced a thousand slaves her yoke to bear. 

Who then shall Theseus, who Alcides blame, 
Or Peleus' son, that they Love's victims were; 

Since e'en those heroes who for Jesus drew 

The righteous sword all- conquering Love o'erthrew ? 



1825. 



GEBUSALEMME LLBEEATA. 



CANTO XII. 



LXIY. 

Ma ecco omai P ora fatale e giunta, 

Che '1 viver di Clorinda al suo fin deve : 

Spinge egli il ferro nel bel sen di punta, 
Che vi s' immerge, e '1 sangue avido beve ; 

E la veste, che d' or vago trapunta 
Le mammelle stringea tenera e leve, 

L' empie d' un caldo fiume : ella gia sente 

Morirsi, e' 1 pie le manca egro e languente. 

LXY. 

Segue egli la vittoria, e la trafitta 

Vergine, minnacciando, incalza e preme : 

Ella, mentre cadea, la voce ainitta 
Movendo, disse le parole estreme, 



JEEUSAIEH DELIVEBED. 



CASTO XII. 



THE BAPTISM AND DEATH OF CLORIXDA. 
LXIV. 

But now Clorinda to fate's stern arrest 

Must yield : her hour is come ; life's debt is due ! 

With well- aimed thrust his weapon pierced her breast, 
Sank deep within it, and her life blood drew. 

The warm flood filled her gold- embroidered vest, 
Whose soft light folds herbosom screened from view. 

She felt the hand of death was on her laid, 

Her staggering foot denied its wonted aid. 

LXV. 

He by the hopes of conquest urged along, 
Impetuous on the wounded maiden pressed ; 

She, as she fell, with faint and faltering tongue 
Scarce to her victor these last words addressed, 



152 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

Parole ch' a lei novo un spirto ditta, 

Spirto di fe, di carita, di speme : 
Virtu ch' or Dio le infonde ; e se rubella 
In vita fu, la vuole in morte aneella. 

LXTI. 

Amico, hai vinto ; io ti perdon : perdona 
Su ancora, al corpo no, che nulla pave, 

All' alma si : deh per lei prega, e dona 
Battesmo a me, ch' ogni mia colpa lave. 

In queste voci languide risuona 
Un non so che di flebile e soave, 

Ch' al cor gli scende, ed ogni sdegno ammorza, 

E gli occhi a lagrimar gP invoglia e sforza. 

XXVII. 

Poco quindi lontan nel sen del monte 
Scaturia mormorando un picciol rio : 

Egli v' accorse, e Y elmo empie nel fonte, 
E torno mesto al grande ufficio e pio. 

Tremar senti la man, mentre la fronte, 
Non conosciuta ancor, sciolse e scoprio. 



THE BAPTISM AXD DEATH OF CLORINDA. 153 

Words which a spirit in her heart new sprung 

(Of Faith, Hope, Love, the spirit) did suggest ; 
For so God willed, that she, who spurned the faith 
While living, should his handmaid prove in death. 

LXVI. 

" Friend, thou hast conquered ; my forgiveness take; 

Let me have thine ; I want no favour shewn 
This fearless body ; for my poor soul's sake 

Pray thou, and give me Baptism, which alone 
May wash away my sins." As thus she spake 

There was a plaintive sweetness in her tone 
Which sinks into his heart ; all anger dies, 
And tears, despite the warrior, fill his eyes. 

LXVII. 

With gentle murmur from a neighbouring hill 
A streamlet flowed ; no more to hear or ask 

Stayed he, but ran his helmet thence to fill ; 
Then turned him sorrowing to his pious task : 

E'en then his hands (tho' undiscovered still 

Her features) trembled as they loosed her casque; 



154 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

La vide, la conobbe ; e resto senza 

E voce, e moto. Ahi vista ! ahi conoscenza ! 

LXVIII. 

Non mori gia ; che sue virtuti accolse 

Tutte in quel punto, e in guardia al cor le mise, 

E, premendo il suo affanno, a dar si volse 
Vita coll' acqua a chi col ferro uccise. 

Mentre egli il suon de' sacri detti sciolse, 
Colei di gioia trasmutossi, e rise : 

E in atto di morir lieto e vivace 

Dir parea : s' apre il cielo, io vado in pace. 

LXIX. 

D' un bel pallore ha il bianco volto asperso, 

Come a' gigli sarian miste viole ; 
E gli occhi al cielo affisa, e in lei converso 

Sembra per la pietate il cielo e '1 sole ; 
E la man nuda e fredda alzando verso 

II cavaliero, in vece di parole, 
Gli da pegno di pace : in questa forma 
Passa la bella donna, e par che dorma. 



THE BAPTISM AND DEATH OF CLORINDA. 155 

He saw, — he knew, — then reft of motion stood, 
And speech. O sight, O knowledge to be rued ! 

LXYIII. 

But soon, the weakness of his heart to guard, 
His prostrate energies he roused again ; 

His own distress o'er- mastering, he prepared 
To save by water her his sword had slain ; 

Then as his lips the holy words declared, 
She smiled with joy victorious o'er the pain 

Of death's sharp sting, and seemed to say in heart : 

" Heaven opens for me ; I in peace depart." 

LXIX. 

A livid paleness her fair face o'erspreads, 
Like violet mingling with the lily white ; 

On heaven she fixed her eyes ; and on the maid 
Heaven seemed to look with pity and delight. 

She had no strength for words, but in their stead, 
Raising her cold bare hand towards the knight, 

Gives him that pledge of peace ; and in this guise, 

As one that falls asleep, the lovely maiden dies. 



156 GERUSALEMME LIBERATA. 

LXX. 

Come F alma gentile uscita ei vede, 
Rallenta quel vigor ch' avea raccolto, 

E F imperio di se libero cede 

Al duol gia fatto impetuoso e stolto ; 

Ch' al cor si stringe, e chiusa in breve sede 
La vita empie di morte i sensi e '1 volto. 

Gia, simile alF estinto il vivo langue 

Al colore, al silenzio, agli atti, al sangue. 



THE BAPTISM AND DEATH OF CLORODA. 157 

LXX. 

But when he saw her noble spirit flown, 
His lately rallied powers again give way : 

And now his frantic grief impetuous grown, 
Left him no longer o'er himself free sway; 

To his heart's narrow seat confined alone, 

(All else was death's) life faint and fluttering lay ; 

You scarce would know the living from the dead, 

Voice, action, hue, from both alike had fled. 



PHILOMELA AC CUHAM)I CONCERTATIO. 

FAMIANUS STRADA. LIB. II. PROLUSIO VI. 
(CLAUDIANI STYLUS.) 



Jam Sol a medio pronus deflexerat orbe, 

Mitius e radiis vibrans crinalibus ignem; 

Cum Fidicen, propter Tiberina fluenta, sonanti 

Lenibat plectro curas, aestumque levabat 

Ilice defensus nigra, scenaque virenti. 

Audiit hune hospes sylvae Philomela propinquse, 

Musa loci, nemoris Siren, innoxia Siren, 

Et prope succedens stetit abdita frondibus, alte 

Accipiens sonitum, secumque remurmurat, et quos 

Ille modos variat digitis, hsec gutture reddit. 



THE HARPER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 



FROM STEAD A S PBOLUSIONES. 



Now Sol, declining from the noon of day, 
From his bright tresses cast a milder ray ; 
When, by the side of gentle Tiber flung, 
His harp, to solace care, a minstrel strung ; 
While the dark ilex and the greenwood shade 
With tangled boughs the sultry hour allayed. 

Him, as it chanced, a nightingale, that long 
Had charmed the neighbouring copse with match- 
less song, 
(The siren of the place, but one that meant no 

wrong,) 
O'erheard; and, by the foliage screened, more near 
Approaching, drank each sound with greedy ear ; 
And, to herself low murmuring, every note 
His fingers struck, gave back with mimic throat. 



160 PHILOMELA AC CITHAR^DI CONCERTATIO. 



Sensit se Fidicen Philomela imitante referri, 
Et placuit ludum volucri dare : plenius ergo 
Explorat citharam, tentamentumque futurse 
Praebeat ut pugnae, percurrit protinus omnes 
Impulsu pernice fides. Nee segnius ilia, 
Mille per excurrens variae discrimina vocis, 
Venturi specimen praefert argutula cantus. 

Tunc Fidicen, per fila movens trepidantia dextram, 
Nunc contemnenti similis diverberat ungue, 
Depectitque pari chordas et simplice ductu ; 
Nunc carptim replicat, digitisque micantibus urget 
Fila minutatim, celerique repercutit ictu. 
Mox silet. Ilia modis totidem respondit, et artem 
Arte refert. Nunc, ceu rudis aut incerta canendi, 
Projicit in longum, nulloque plicatile flexu 
Carmen init, simili serie, jugique tenor e 



THE HARPER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 161 

The mocking strains in turn the harper heard, 
And straight resolved to give the merry bird 
The sport she seemed to seek ; for this, his lyre 
He tunes with greater care, and proves each wire : 
Then o'er the scale he runs with rapid thumb, 
And sounds a prelude to the strife to come. 
Not with less art the bird her voice essays, — 
From high to low its compass she displays ; 
Through each division running, soft and strong, 
A previous sample of her powers of song. 

Now o'er the frame his arm the minstrel flings ; 
With careless air at first he touched the strings ; 
And simple measures, regular and slow, 
Seemed struck in scorn of such unequal foe : 
Then o'er the chords his nimble fingers fly 
With touch minute, and brilliant harmony ; 
Brook no dull pause, but still take up again, 
With rapid stroke, the ever varying strain. 

He ceased ; and Philomel, with mimic art, 
The measure caught, and echoed every part ; 
Timid at first, as if from artless throat, 
She slowly drew the long unvaried note ; 



162 PHILOMELA AC CITHARJEDI CONCERTATIO. 



Praebet iter liquidum labenti e pectore voci : 
Nunc ceesim variat, modulisque canora minutis 
Delibrat vocem, tremuloque reciprocat ore. 

Miratur Fidicen parvis e faucibus ire 
Tarn varium, tam dulce melos ; majoraque tentans 
Alternat mira arte fides : dum torquet acutas, 
Inciditque : graves operoso verbere pulsat, 
Permiscetqne simul certantia rauca sonoris, 
Ceu resides in bella viros clangore lacessat. 
Hoc etiam Philomela canit ; dumque ore liquenti 
Vibrat acuta sonum, modulisque interplicat eequis, 
Ex inopinato gravis intonat, et leve murmur 
Turbinat introrsus, alternantique sonore 
Clarat, et infuscat, ceu Martia classica pulset. 

Scilicet erubuit Fidicen, iraque calente 
Aut non hoc, inquit, referes Citharistria sylvse, 



THE HARPER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 163 

While from her breast, in smooth and even tide, 
Her liquid voice spontaneous seemed to glide : 
Then thickly warbled from her quivering bill, 
In mellow tones she pours the varied trill ; 
Minutely fine her trembling voice sustains, 
And fills the wild woods with responsive strains. 

The minstrel marvelled how from pipe so small 
Such sweet, such various melody could fall : 
A loftier effort of his art he tries, 
And bids the notes alternate fall and rise. 
Now shrill they pierce the ear, and now they rang 
Beneath his touch with deep sonorous clang ; 
Then in the trumpet's thrilling strains unite, — 
Such strains as rouse dull laggards to the fight. 
This, too, the bird achieves ; first, shrill and high, 
The liquid music cleaves the vaulted sky; 
Then on a sudden from her chest profound 
In deep low murmurs came the gurgling sound ; 
The notes alternate seem to sink and swell, 
And on the ear like martial bugle fell. 

The harper blushed, half angry, half ashamed ; 
" Proud chantress of the woods," he then exclaimed, 



164 PHILOMELA AC CITHAR^DI CONCERTATIO. 



Aut fracta cedam cithara. Nee plura locutus, 
Non imitabilibus plectrum concentibus urget. 
Namque manu per fila volat : simul hos, simul illos 
Explorat numeros, chordaque laborat in omni : 
Et strepit, et tinuit, crescitque superbius, et se 
Multiplicat relegens, plenoque choreumate plaudit : 
Turn stetit expectans, si quid paret semula contra. 

Ilia autem, quamquam vox dudum exercita fauces 
Asperat, impatiens vinci, simul advocat omnes 
Nequicquam vires : nam, dum discrimina tanta 



THE HARPER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 165 

" Either to this thy baffled powers shall yield, 

" Or I my harp will break, and quit the field !" 

He said ; and putting forth his utmost pains, 

Drew from his harp inimitable strains : 

With flying fingers swept each sounding wire, 

And called forth all the magic of his lyre. 

On every chord he labours, and explores 

Of taste and science all the hidden stores. 

Now softly sweet the tinkling numbers came, 

Now with loud crash resounds the vocal frame : 

Now seem his hands in mutual chase to roll, 

The strain redoubling ; till he crowned the whole, 

As each new effort o'er the last still rose 

With one full burst, one grand and glorious close ; 

Then paused to listen if his rival still 

Had aught to match this triumph of his skiLl. 

But she, impatient to be thus outvied, 
Though now too long and too severely tried 
Her voice began to fail, yet gave not o'er 
The strife, but summoned for one effort more 
(Alas ! in vain) those powers too hardly tasked before. 
For while the Harper to the contest brings 



166 PHILOMELA AC CITHAR^DI COXCERTATIO. 

Reddere tot fidium nativa et simplice tentat 
Voce, eanaliculisque imitari grandia parvis, 
Impar magnanimis ausis, imparque dolori 
Deficit, et vitam summo in certamine linquens 
Victoris cadit in plectrum, par nacta sepulchrum. 
Usque adeo et tenues animas ferit semula virtus. 



THE HARPER AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 167 

The complex harmony of countless strings, 
She on her mere unaided voice relies, 
And simple nature's untaught energies ; 
Unfit to compass her ambitious aim, 
Or of defeat to bear the conscious shame, 
She sinks exhausted by the unequal strife, 
And quits the contest only with her life. 
The victor's harp receives her latest breath, — 
A death-bed not unworthy such a death. 
To such brave deeds can emulation fire, 
And little souls with scorn of life inspire. 

Dec. 11th, 1824. 



168 



DEFEKDIT NUMEBUS. 



Blandioe, indulsit, felis, tibi Parca ; novena 

Nam tibi net Lachesis fila novena colo. 
Hinc, si missa voles celsi de culmine tecti, 

Decidis in tutos prsecipitata pedes. 
Nee miseram licet infestent laniique canesque, 

Te lanii exanimant, exanimantve canes. 
Si moriare semel, si bis, si terve, quaterve, 

Plusquam dimidia parte superstes eris. 

Vincent Bourne. 



169 



DEFENDIT NTMEKUS. 



Fob, thee, blest cat ! the Fates indulgent twine 

A ninefold thread of life from distaffs nine. 

Hence, tho' from some high roof thou'rt headlong 

cast, 
Thou light* st in safety on thy feet at last. 
Though dogs and butchers persecute thee still, 
Nor dog nor butcher e'er can wholly kill. 
For once, twice, thrice, four times, of life bereft, 
Thou still hast more than half thy being left. 

July 28th, 1827. 



170 



IMOGENS PBJ1MTK1X 



Sedxjla per campos, nullo defessa labor e, 

In cella ut stipet mella, vagatur apis : 
Purpureum vix florem opifex praetervolat unum, 

Innumeras inter quas alit hortus opes ; 
Herbula gramineis vix una innascitur agris, 

Thesauri unde aliquid non studiosa legit. 
A fiore ad florem transit, mollique volando 

Delibat tactu suave quod intus habent. 
Omnia delibat, parce sed et omnia, furti 

Ut ne vel minimum videris indicium. 
Omnia degustat tarn parce, ut gratia nulla 

Floribus, ut nullus diminuatur odor. 
Non ita prsedantur modice bruchique et erucse : 

Non, ista hortorum maxima pestis, aves 



171 



THE HAMLESS PILFEEEE, 



With toil unwearied, over lawn and lea, 

In search of honey roams the industrious bee ; 

Amid the countless stores the garden yields 

There springs no flower, no plant in all the fields, 

Which the skilled artist passes unexplored, 

From which she culls not something for her hoard. 

From flower to flower she flies ; and, as she flies, 

What each contains of sweetness tastes, and tries. 

From each she sips, and yet there is not left, 

(So sparing and so delicate the theft,) 

Of wrong committed e'en the slightest trace ; 

No flower has lost an odour, none a grace. 

Not thus the slugs and caterpillars prey ; 

Not thus, the garden's pest, the pilfering jay ; 



172 INNOCENS PR.EDATRIX. 

Non ita rap tores corvi, quorum improba rostra 

Despoliant agros effodiuntque sata. 
Succos immiscens succis, ita suaviter omnes 

Temperat, ut dederit chymia nulla pares. 
Vix furtum est illud, dicive injuria debet, 

Quod cera et multo melle rependit apis. 

Vincent Bourne 



THE HARMLESS PILFERER. 173 

Not thus the robber rook, with restless bill, 
Intent on plundering some rich cornfield still. 
Then, how she blends and tempers juice with juice ! 
No chemic art the like w r ould e'er produce. 
Call it not robbery then, which she with store 
Of wax repays, and honey o'er and o'er. 

October, 1827. 



LATIN-ORIGINAL. 



AD PATEEM, 



Dux tu perita fers opem, pater, manu 

Angoribus dolentmm ; 
Ultroque tristi, quid tins debes memor, 

Adhuc moraris oppido ; 
Nos, cum mar it a liberi, peregimus 

Amoena ruris otia : 
Xec scripta forte displicebunt gaudia, 

Queis ipse potieris brevi. 
Labuntur ergo ut lseta nobis tempora, 

Xi taedeat, paucis lege. 
Cum per fenestras sol novum mittat jubar, 

Ortumque nunciet diem ; 
Refecta jamjam membra corripiens toro 

Pererro prata roscida, 

N 



178 AD PATREM. 

Leetusque miror ut viget nascens nemus, 

Seu crescat ulmus fortior, 
Meliorve platanus, seu micans abies comis, 

Fagusve juncta robori ; 
Dum fida gressus turba comitatur canum 

Subinde tentans, quod licet, 
Dumos ; latentem quippe sub satis adhuc 

Turbare perdicem nefas. 
Turn gaudeo, vel arte ficto Dsedala 

Muscae nitentis corpore 
Trutam obstinatam, viribus fractam suis, 

Vix victor ad ripam trahens ; 
Hamove lsevem callide vermem implicans 

Percis edacibus dolum; 
Tincamque, piscinseque regem lucium 

Haud parva capta praemia. 
Hinc parca quales mensa delicias habet, 

Hinc quantus est cibis sapor ! 
Mox, ire qua me amoena suadeat via, 

Per rura, per campos equo 
Exerceor; ni forte juverit magis 

Tentare quid profecerim 



AD PATRE3I. 179 

Torquens sagittam, stridulamque arimdinem 

Adusque me tarn dirigens. 
At cum coruscus orbe sol altissimo 

Accendat eestus fervidos, 
Ah ! quanta morus (morus haud ipsi tuse 

Cessura, vates inclyte) 
Dat gaudia ! iliic tegminis sub frigore 

Dulci recumbens otio, 
Aut nota circum prata mugientium 

Armenta prospecto vaga; 
Aut miror ut se nunc in ipsa nubila 

Columba praepes erigit. 
Nunc visa labi, mox resurgit ocyus 

Scinditque gyris aera. 
Horamve quodvis lectitans opusculum 

Impendo non inutilem ; 
Ne forte credas mentis hsec inter, pater, 

Torpere neglectas opes. 
Nee nempe vitaB gaudiorum rustic se 

Pars nulla debetur libris. 
Sic cum per arva pallidam sensim stoiam 

Tranquilla nox induxerit, 



180 AD PATREM. 

Cernas beatum, si quis est alter, gregem 

" Circum renidentes lares." 
Dum ridet herbis mensa non nocentibus, 

Splendetque ccena simplici : 
Nee sermo dulcis deficit ; nee te, pater, 

Hunc inter obliviscimur. 
Reddent maritse conjugem pauci dies, 

Reddent parentem liberis ! 
Paucis diebus nostra tibi erunt gaudia, 

Haud plena, ni tecum simul. 

Aug. 13th, 1805. 



AN COXTRABIA MUTUO SE EXPELLAXT 
AITIBUATUR. 



Vesper erat : plenoque ignes de more vetusto 

Lydia subjectos cauta lebete premit; 
Exierat forte ilia domo : mox tollere murmur 

Inclusa serato carcere coepit aqua. 
Surgit paulatim, flammseque coacta calore 

Suppositae, fervens altius unda tumet. 
Protinus hinc illinc costas amplexus aheni 

Ex eere iratas ejicit ignis aquas. 
Nee mora, praecipiti per fumea claustra volutus 

Candentem torrens irrigat imbre focum. 
Vis ignis suppressa perit. Quid plurima ? — Carbo, 

Quo tua flamma abiit ? quo tua lympha, Lebes : 



AN BBUTA COGITENT: AFFIEMATTIE. 



Qua, strata in tabulis, sartorum fcetida turba 

Sutile, transversis cruribus, urget opus ; 
Praeteriens elephas, mirans insueta, fenestrae 

Intulit, affixa. non sine mole, caput. 
Intrusam, varia vafer arte, proboscida sartor 

(Ludibrium sociis et sibi) pungit acu. 
Non tulit hoc elephas : tacita sed percitus ira 

Accepta ulcisci vulnera fraude parat. 
Multa movens animo, vestigia lenta ferebat 

Qua sudat tepida pigra cloaca lacu : 
Hinc ubi ccenosum per colla absorbuit haustum 

Sartorum indignans limina nota petit ; 
Hie tabulas super, intextasque proboscida vestes 

Exonerans, foedas expuit ultor aquas. 



AN BRUTA COGITENT. 183 

Protinus audiri convitia mutua, ibi omnes 
Effusae merces, hebdomadisque labor. 

Ille exprobatus tantorum causa malorum, 
" Ne tos pceniteat res ea," sartor ait : 

" Si norint docti sentire elephanta dolorem, 
Hinc tamen, hinc discent pectus inesse ferae." 

1806. 



AD AMTCUM MODO UXOEEM DITCTUEUM. 



O tu juventse prime comes meae, 
Experte mecum nunc studio graves 
Acri labores, nunc jocoso 
Gaudia amicitiee Lyaeo, 

Allene, ni tu Candide lsetior 
Audis ; id olim seu nivei tibi 
Fecere cognomen capilli, 

Sive animus sine fraude simplex, 

Pectusque purum, (ut crediderim magis)- 
Quocunque gaudes nomine ; jam tria 
Post lustra salve ! gratulanti 
Kite mihi veterem sodalem. 



AD A3IICUM. 185 



Ergo illigavit compede subdolus, 
Tenetque captum te Veneris puer ? 
Jam nunc et arris it , facemque 
Lsetus Hymen tibi nuptialem 



Prsetendit ? O ! quam tu tibi conjugem 
Duces beatis auspiciis domum ! 
Utrique consensere miris 

Astra modis, animeeque vestrum. 



Quam digna amari sunt tibi novimus, 
Quantique amoris corda capacia ; 
Illi Juventus, Gratiseque, et 
Quicquid id est quod amoeniori 



Cor omnium ad se nescio quo mo do 
Allectat : illi pura Fides tibi 
Devota, nee mutanda lsetis 
Temporibus dubiisve Virtus. 



186 AD AMICUM. 

Multos in annos, O ! bone sis precor 
Allene felix ! et tibi defluant 
Desideranti pauca ab almo 

Res, et honor, sobolesque coelo. 

Scandant paternum Candiduli genu, 
Natique natorum, et similes avi 
Vultumque virtutesque in aevum 
Perpetuurn referant nepotes. 

About 1820. 



LINES DESCRIPTIVE OF THE GAEDEX 
AT SPBINGITELD. 



Jam mihi quern nuper vidi lsetissimus hortum, 
Fas sit quo possim breviter perscribere versu. 
Principio hinc illinc ineunti maxima laurus 
Circuitus patet in largos, et gramen obumbrat : 
Inter utramque via. recta fert semita ad sedes. 
Progresso paulum ad laevam de cespite vivo 
Ecce crucis secta est Melitense more figura, 
Quae varia riorum specie signata nitescit. 
Ad dextram pariter, regalis forma coronae 
Floribus innumeris gemmas imitatur et aurum ; 
Multaque praeterea passim se sustulit arbos 
Omnigenis ornata rosis ; et dahlia florum 



188 LINES. 

(Si fo raise par esset odor,) regina, colores 
Pandit mille novos, et millia nomina jactat ; 
Nee circumduct© desunt pendentia muro 
Prunaque purpurea, et mensis pyra grata secundis. 

Sept. 2nd, 1839. 



LATIN TRANSLATIONS. 



AGAINST PKIDE IN DEESS. 



Why should our garments, made to hide 
Our parents' shame, provoke our pride ? 
The art of dress did ne'er begin. 
Till Eve, our mother, learnt to sin. 

When first she put the covering on, 
Her robe of innocence was gone ; 
And yet her children vainly boast 
In the sad marks of glory lost. 

How proud we are ! how fond to shew 
Our clothes, and call them rich and new ! 
When the poor sheep and silkworm wore 
That very clothing long before. 



Primorum inventas probra ad celanda parentum, 
Cur nobis tunicae tanto in honore forent ? 

Non prius ornandi venerunt corporis artes 
Peccare infelix quam didicisset Eve. 

Turn primum ilia novo sese velavit amictu, 
Ut stetit innocui tegmine nuda sinus ; 

At nos dedecoris stulte ostentamus aviti, 
Ilia progenies orta parente, notas. 

Mirari juvat, et nitidas os tender e vestes, 
Quanti sunt pretii, qua novitate micant ! 

Talia jactamus, sed bombyx ante gerebat 
Has ipsas tunicas, ante gerebat ovis. 



]92 AGAINST PRIDE IN DRESS. 

The tulip and the butterfly 

Appear in gayer coats than I : 

Let me be diest fine as I will 

Flies, worms, and flowers exceed me still. 



Then will I set my heart to find 
Inward adorning s of the mind ; 
Knowledge and virtue, truth and grace, 
These are the robes of richest dress. 



No more shall worms with me compare ; 
This is the raiment angels wear ; 
The Son of God, when here below, 
Put on this blest apparel too. 



It never fades, it ne'er grows old ; 
Nor fears the rain, nor moth, nor mould ; 
It takes no spot, but still refines ; 
The more 'tis worn, the more it shines. 



AGAIXST PRIDE IN DRESS. 193 

Papilio variis longe mihi prsenitet alis, 
Praenitet innumeris tulipa picta modis. 

Quo me cunque colam studio, musca aemula palmam 
Me victo, et flores, vermiculique ferent. 



Morum igitur cultus potior mihi cura, animique 

Assidui ornatus interioris, erunt : 
Veri sanctus amor, pietas, sapientia, virtus, 

Haec mihi vestis erunt optima, summus honor. 



Hac chlamyde instructo, tandem mihi cedite vermes ; 

Hac solet angelicus sese amicire chorus. 
Quinetiam hanc olim, dignatus vis ere terras, 

Induit eterni Filius ipse Dei. 

Nunquam obscuratur, nunquam obsolet ilia ; neque 
imbres, 

Aut avido tineas ore, situmve timet : 
Non maculam capit, at contra fit clarior usu, 

Inque dies specie candidiore nitet. 



194 AGAINST PRIDE IN DRESS. 

In this on earth would I appear, 
Then go to heav'n and wear it there ; 
God will approve it, in his sight ; 
'Tis His own work, and his delight. 



Watts 



AGAINST PRIDE IX DRESS. ]95 

Hoc ergo, in terris dum commoror, orner amictu, 
Sic quoque et etherias fas sit adire domos ; 

Rex ibi ecelicolum vultu arridente probabit 
Hoc opus Ipse suum, deliciasque suas. 

Sept. 1832. 



SIGNS OF RAIN. 



REASONS FOR NOT ACCEPTING THE INVITATION OF A FRIEND. 



The hollow winds begin to blow, 
The clouds look black, the glass is low, 
The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep, 
And spiders from their cobwebs peep ; 
Last night the sun went pale to bed, 
The moon in haloes hid her head ; 
The boding shepherd heaves a sigh, 
For see, a rainbow spans the sky ; 
The walls are damp, the ditches smell, 
Closed is the pink- eyed pimpernel ; 
Hark, how the chairs and tables crack ! 
Old Betty's joints are on the rack. 
Loud quack the ducks, the peacocks cry, 
The distant hills are seeming nigh. 



Jam flare incipiunt rauco cum murmure venti ; 

Nigrescunt nubes ; sidit hydrargyrium ; 
Fuligo deseendit ; aranea cassibus exit ; 

Dormitansque canis sternitur ante focum. 
Pallidus he sterna Sol nocte cubile petivit ; 

Obvolvit nebulis humida Luna caput. 
Praesagus pluviae ducit suspiria pastor, 

En etenini coelos Iridis arcus obit. 
Jamque putres foetent fossae ; murique madescunt ; 

Pasta oculurn timide clausum anagallis habet. 
Audisne ut mensse crepuere, sediliaque ultro ? 

Et gemit, ossa adeo discruciantur, anus. 
Yociferatur anas ; strepit acri guttere pavo ; 

Longinqui apparet jam prope montis apex. 



198 SIGNS OF RAIN. 

How restless are the snorting swine ! 
The busy flies disturb the kine ; 
Low o'er the grass the swallow wings ; 
The cricket too, how sharp he sings ! 
Puss, on the hearth, with velvet paws 
Sits wiping o'er her whisker' d jaws. 
Through the clear stream the fishes rise, 
And nimbly catch the incautious flies ; 
The glowworms, numerous and bright, 
Ilium' d the dewy dell last night ; 
At dusk the squalid toad was seen 
Hopping and crawling o'er the green; 
The whirling wind the dust obeys, 
And in the rapid eddy plays ; 
The frog has changed his yellow vest, 
And in a russet coat is drest ; 
Though June, the air is cold and still ; 
The mellow blackbird's voice is shrill; 
My dog, so altered in his taste, 
Quits mutton bones on grass to feast ; 
And see yon rooks, how odd their flight ! 
They imitate the gliding kite, 



SIGHTS OF RAIX. 199 

Sus praeter solitum trepidat, nee stertere cessat ; 

Morsibus exagitat musca molesta boves. 
En liumilis volat, et campum vix radit hirundo ; 

Turn magis arguto carmine grillus ovat. 
Ante focum felis sedet, assiduoque labore 

Hirta pedum plantis mollibus or a lavat. 
Aspicias vitream per aquam se mittere pisces. 

Ut si cauta par am musca sit, arripiant. 
Turn vidi innumeris interlucentibus herb am 

Vermibus hesterna nocte micare nemus. 
Squallidus, erepens sub sera crepuscula, bufo 

Pigra per immundam membra trahebat humum. 
Pulvereamque rotans nubem, sublime per auras 

Hue, illuc, rapido turbine, ventus agit. 
Aspice quae nuper croceo fulgebat amictu 

Vertitur, et fusca jam cute rana rubet. 
Aura, aestiva licet, gelida est ; merulaeque canorae 

Xon jam suave fluit carmen, at acre sonat. 
Praeterea, oblitus naturae, vescitur herba, 

Ossaque, proh monstrum ! linquit o villa canis. 
Isti etiam corvi morem mutasse videntur, 

Pennasque, ut milvi, vix agitare fuga ; 



200 SIGNS OF RAIN. 

And seem precipitate to fall, 
As if they felt the piercing ball : — 
'Twill surely rain, I see with sorrow; 
Our jaunt must be put off to-morrow. 

Dr. Jenner. 



SIGNS OF RAIN. 201 

Turn quasi trajiceret subito cor letifer ictus, 
Aere se librant, praecipitesque cadunt. 

Crastina lux pluvias (experto credite,) ducet, 
Propositum moniti ne faciamus iter. 



THE POPLAR FIELD, 



The poplars are felPd : farewell to the shade, 
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade ! 
The winds play no longer, and sing in the leaves, 
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives. 

Twelve years have elaps'd since I first took a view 
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew ; 
And now on the grass behold they are laid, 
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade ! 

The blackbird has fled to another retreat, 
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat ; 
And the scene where his melody charm' d me before 
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more. 



Stratum populeum nemus est ; cara umbra, valeto ! 

Frigus, et aurarum grate susurre, vale ! 
Non jam inter frondes leni flant murmure venti, 

Non harum in vitreo flumine imago micat. 

Bis sex praeteriere anni, ex quo tempore vidi 
Dilectum, ornabat quern nemus illud, agrum ; 

Quod nunc, ecce ! jacet subversum in gramine : et 
arbor 
Nunc mihi dat sedem, quae modo tegmen erat. 

Jamque alias merulse latebras petiere, diei 
Unde procul coryli fervida tela fugant. 

Xec loca quae grato quondam modulamine sensus 
Mulcerunt, resonant jam mihi suave melos. 



204 THE POPLAR FIELD. 

My fugitive years are all hasting away, 

And I must ere long lie as lowly as they, 

With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head, 

Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead. 

'Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can, 
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man ; 
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments I see 
Have a being less durable even than he. 

Cowper. 



THE POPLAR FIELD. 205 

Et mea vita fugax celeri pede labitur, et mox 
Obrutus, hi quales sunt, ego truncus ero. 

Adstabitque prius capiti lapis, ossaque condar 
Cespite, quam veteri par nova sylva subit. 

Has dum mente vices reputo, mortalibus setas 
Quam brevis' est moneor, quam breve quicquid 
amant. 

Vita hominis velut umbra fugit, sed gaudia vitse 
Hei mihi ! prsetereunt jam citiore fuga. 



THE EOSE, 



The rose had been wash'd, just wash'd in a shower, 

Which Mary to Anna convey' d; 
The plentiful moisture encumber' d the flower, 

And weigh' d down its beautiful head. 

The cup was ail fill'd, and the leaves were all wet; 

And it seem'd, to a fanciful view, 
To weep for the buds it had left with regret 

On the flourishing bush where it grew. 

I hastily seized it, unfit as it was 

For a nosegay, so dripping and drown' d, 

And swinging it rudely, too rudely, alas ! 
I snapp'd it; it fell to the ground. 



Qtjam modo iargus aqua madefecerat imber, ad 
Annam 

Munere portabat lseta Maria rosam ; 
Et flos egregium, collecto humore gravatus, 

Demisit collo languidiore caput. 

Ut plenum vidi calicem, et folia humida circum, 

Sponte videbatur flos mihi flere sua, 
Et desiderio tristi moerere relicta? 

Arboris, unde avida vi modo vulsus erat. 

Hunc propere arripui, nimia licet obrutus unda 

Yix oblectandis naribus aptus erat ; 
Arripui, cautusque parum dum torqueo caulem, 

Decussus cecidit flos miserandus linmi. 



208 THE ROSE. 

And such, I exclaim' d, is the pitiless part 

Some act by the delicate mind ; 
Regardless of wringing and breaking a heart 

Already to sorrow resign' d. 

This elegant rose, had I shaken it less, 

Might have bloom' d with its owner awhile ; 

And the tear that is wip'd with a little address 
May be folio w'd perhaps by a smile. 

Cowper, 



THE ROSE. 209 

Et tales, clamo, sunt qui lenimine vires 

Infirmis animis suppeditare negant ; 
Qui temere excruciant miseros, et frangere pergunt 

Pectora, quae luctus jam grave pressit onus. 

Haec, si forte mihi minus exagitata fuisset, 

Paulisper poterat salva fuisse rosa ; 
Et, quibus alma, aliquis lachrymam deterserat arte, 

Mox risum videas, emicuisse genis. 



MORTUARY VERSES, 



COMPOSED FOR JOHN COX, PARISH CLERK OF NORTHAMPTON, AND 
SUBJOINED TO THE YEARLY BILL OF MORTALITY, A.D. 1787. 



While thirteen moons saw smoothly run 
The Nen's barge-laden wave, 

All these, life's rambling journey done, 
Have found their house, the grave. 

Was man (frail always) made more frail 

Than in foregoing years ? 
Did famine or did plague prevail, 

That so much death appears ? 

No ! these were vigorous as their sires, 
Nor plague, nor famine came ; 

This annual tribute death requires, 
And never waives his claim. 



Dum lunse tredecim viderunt currere Nenum 
Et placido vectas amne natare rates, 

Hos omnes, \ arise decurso tramite vitse, 
Excepit tumuli non fugienda domus. 

Ergone, jamdudum fragilis, nunc pronior setas 
Est hominum ad celerem quam fuit ante necem : 

An miseranda fames, an sa9\dit horrida pestis, 
Quod sic corripuit mors properata gradum r 

At vigor his idem datus est qui patribus olim, 
Nee pestis venit, nee miseranda. fames ; 

Hsec fatum poscit, poscetque tributa quotannis, 
Xec sibi non reddi debita jura sinit. 



212 MORTUARY VERSES. 

Like crowded forest-trees we stand, 
And some are mark'd to fall ; 

The axe will smite at God's command, 
And soon shall smite us all. 



Green as the bay-tree, ever green, 

With its new foliage on, 
The gay, the thoughtless, have I seen ; 

I pass'd — and they were gone. 



Read, ye that run, the aweful truth 
With which I charge my page ! 

A worm is in the bud of youth, 
And at the root of age. 



No present health can health insure 
For yet an hour to come ; 

No med'cine, though it oft can cure, 
Can always balk the tomb. 



MORTUARY VERSES. 213 

Haud secus ac sylvis denso stant ordine pinus, 
Et nota csesuris illita ouique sua est ; 

Sic nobis jussu divino ictura bipennis 

Imminet, et Letho mox caput omne dabit. 



Ssepe homines vidi qui prima setate virebant, 
Qualis fronde nova laurus amicta viret. 

Vidi securos ludo dare tempus inepto ; 
Prseterii, — nusquam frivola turba fuit. 



Perlege qui curris, non est mora longa legenti, 
Perlege quae noster vera libellus habet ; 

Vermis edax rosese latet heu ! sub flore juventae, 
Esaque radicem verme senecta perit. 



Quid si nunc valeas, non eras idcirco valebis, 
Hora potest moibos proxima ferre suos ; 

Ssepius attulerit forsan medicina salutem, 
Non tamen immunis funere semper eris. 



214 MORTUARY VERSES. 

And oh ! that, humble as my lot 

And scorn' d as is my strain, 
These truths, though known, too much forgot, 

I may not teach in vain. 

So prays your clerk with all his heart, 

And, ere he quits the pen, 
Begs you for once to take his part, 

And answer all — Amen ! 

COWPEK. 



MORTUARY VERSES. 215 

Atque, oh ! sors quamvis humilis mea, nee fuit un- 
quam 

Dignatum multo carmen honore meum ; 
Quae toties cecini frustra, ne rursus inepta 

Pectoreque immemori mox abitura canam. 

Sic toto de corde precor, digitisque priusquam 
Depono calamos, hanc superaddo precem : 

Ut partes nostras vos excipiatis, et omnes 
Una voce pium congeminetis Amen. 



THE CYPEESS WfiEATH. 

WILFE1D : S SONG FEOM " E.OKEBY." 



O, lady, twine no wreath for me, 
Or twine it of the cypress-tree ! — 
Too lively glow the lilies light, 
The varnish' d holly 's all too bright ; 
The mayflower and the eglantine 
May shade a brow less sad than mine ; 
But, lady, weave no wreath for me, 
Or weave it of the cypress-tree ! 

Let dimpled mirth his temples twine 
With tendrils of the laughing vine ; 
The manly oak, the pensive yew, 
To patriot and to sage be due ; 



Nullah, nympha, mihi, nullam eontexe corollam, 

Aut de cupressi facta sit ilia comis ; 
Ah ! nimium fulgent mihi lilia vana, nimisque 

Lsevis aquifolii planta nitoris habet ; 
Nee rosa sylvestris, nee spinse floseulus albse 

Me decet ; hse decorent tempora mcesta minus ; 
Sed mihi, nympha, precor, nullam eontexe corollam, 

Aut de cupressi facta sit ilia comis. 

Impediat frontem festivae palmite vitis 
Euphrosyne ridens lumina, labia, genas ; 

Cultori sophias contingat sobria taxus ; 
Sitque bono civi mascula quercus honor ; 



218 THE CYPRESS WREATH. 

The myrtle bough bids lovers live, 
But that Matilda will not give ; 
Then, lady, twine no wreath for me, 
Or twine it of the cypress tree ! 

Let merry England proudly rear 

Her blended roses bought so dear ; 

Let Albion bind her bonnet blue 

With heath and harebell dipp'd in dew ; 

On favor' d Erin's crest be seen 

The flower she loves of emerald green ; — 

But, lady, twine no wreath for me, 

Or twine it of the cypress tree. 

Strike the wild harp, while maids prepare 
The ivy meet for minstrel's hair ; 
And, while his crown of laurel leaves 
With bloody hand the victor weaves, 
Let the loud trump his triumph tell ; — 
But, when you hear the passing bell, 
Then, lady, twine a wreath for me, 
And twine it of the cypress tree. 



THE CYPRESS WREATH. 219 

Spem myrtus, vitamque novam dat amantibus aegris ; 

At myrtum duro corde Matilda negat. 
Ergo, nympha, mihi nullam contexe corollam, 

Aut de cupressi facta sit ilia comis. 

Evehat exultans, pretioso sanguine partas, 

Quas junxit geminas Anglia lseta rosas ; 
Cceruleum lotis hyacinthis rore galerum 

Scotia (nee redolens desit Erica) tegat ; 
Flore sibi caro, virides imitante smaragdos, 

Semper honoratum cingat Ierna caput ; 
At tu, nympha, mihi nullam contexe corollam, 

Aut de cupressi facta sit ilia comis. 

Barbitos icta sonet, dum vatum crinibus aptam 

Virgineo est hederam cura parare choro ; 
Sanguineaque manu dum victor laurea nectit 

Serta, triumphales det tuba rauca modos. 
At tibi cum tulerit notse vox tristis ad aures 

Admonitus, animam corpore abisse meam, 
Turn mihi, si libeat, contexas, nympha, corollam ; 

Et de cupressi facta sit ilia comis. 



220 THE CYPRESS WREATH. 

Yes ! twine for me the cypress bough; 
But O ! Matilda, twine not now ! 
Stay till a few brief months are past, 
And I have looked and loved my last ; 
When villagers my shroud bestrew 
With pansies, rosemary, and rue ; — 
Then, lady, weave a wreath for me, 
And w r eave it of the cypress tree. 

Scott. 



THE CYPRESS WREATH. 221 

Immo age, fwnerese frondem mihi texe cupressi ; 

Quin O paulisper flebile differ opus ; 
Post aliquot menses, cum te vidisse supremum, 

Et te supremum temp us amass e sinat ; 
Cum mixtis rhuta violis, et rore marino 

Spargent agrestes heec mea membra manus ; 
Turn mihi, nympha, precor, turn demum texe corol- 
lam, 

Et de cupressi texta sit ilia comis. 

October 9th, 1843. 



GO, LOVELY LOSE. 



Go, lovely rose ! 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 

That now she knows, 
When I resemble her to thee, 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 

Tell her that 's young, 
And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That hadst thou sprung 
In deserts where no men abide, 
Thou must have uncommended died. 

Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired ; 



I, Formosa mese die rosa Lydiae, 

Quae nunc et miserum me terit, et suum 

Tempus, colligat ex hoc, 

Illam quod tibi comparo, 

Quam sit judicio pulchra et amabilis, 
Praedulcisque meo ; die, rosa, virgini, 

Quae spectanda juventa, 

Et forma, et facie, tamen 

E visu refugit, si vacuis virum 
Desertisque fores edita tu locis, 

Illaudata perisses. 

Parvi gratia penditur 



224 GO, LOYELY ROSE. 

Bid her come forth, 
Suffer herself to be desired, 
And not blush so to be admired. 

Then die ; that she 
The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee : 
How small a part of time they share, 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair. 

Waller. 



Yet though thou fade, 
From thy dead leaves let fragrance rise ; 

And teach the maid, 
That goodness time's rude hand defies ; 
That virtue lives when beauty dies. 

Kirke White. 



GO, LOVELY ROSE. 225 

Semota ex oculis ; die age, prodeat 
In lucem, neque se sic vetet appeti, 

Sic laudata rubescat. 

Turn demum morere ; ut tua 

Ilia in morte legal, quam spatium breve 
Raris usque eadem lex dedit omnibus, 

Si quid suavius unquam, 

Si quid sit speciosius. 



Sed nympham e foliis dulcis odor tuis 
Post mortem doceat, tempus ut invidum 

Spernit, vivaque floret 

Virtus, cum periit decor. 

March 11th, 1844. 



226 



EPITAPH IN WISBEACH CHURCHYARD, 



Beneath a sleeping infant lies ; 

To earth his body lent 
Hereafter shall more glorious rise, 

But not more innocent. 

And when the Arch-angel's trump shall blow, 

And souls to bodies join, 
Thousands shall wish their lives below 

Had been as short as thine. 



Subteh quiescit dormiens infantulus ; 

Corpusque terrae creditum 
Resurget olim gloria indutum nova, 

Sua sed innocentia. 

Ut angelorum principis canet tuba, 

Rursusque vivent mortui, 
Degisse tarn paucos in hac terra dies 

Quam tu, quot optabunt, puer ! 

Feb. 3rd 1843. 



THE ENVIOUS SNOW, 



The envious snow comes down in haste, 
To prove thy breast less fair, 

But grieves to see itself surpassed, 
And melts into a tear. 



Though the same sun, with all diffusive rays, 
Blush in the rose, and in the diamond blaze, 
We prize the stronger effort of its power, 
And justly set the gem before the flower. 

Pope. 



Ccelo descendit propere nix invida, colli 
Candorem fidens vincere posse tui, 

Sed dolet, ut sese victam certamine sentit, 
Fitque, tibi mcerens cedere, lachrymula, 

December 16th. 1843. 



Quid quod ubique jacit radios sol unus, et idem ; 

Unde nitet pariter gemma, rubetque rosa, 
Sideris aetherei laudabitur acrior ictus, 

Et flori, ut jus est, anteferetur onyx. 

November 1st. 1843. 



OH NANM, WILT THOU GANG WITH ME? 



Oh Nanny, wilt thou gang with me, 

Nor sigh to leave the flaunting town ; 
Can silent glens have charms for thee, 

The lowly lot and russet gown ? 
No longer drest in silken sheen, 

No longer decked with jewels rare, 
Say canst thou quit each courtly scene, 

Where thou art fairest of the fair ? 

Oh Nanny, when thou'rt far away, 
Wilt thou not cast a wish behind ; 

Say, canst thou face the parching ray, 
Nor shrink before the wintry wind ? 

Oh ! can that soft, that gentle mien, 
Extremes of hardships learn to bear, 



Ergone vis mecum, comes hinc ire Anna? nee, urbis 

Quod nitidae linquis gaudia, tristis abis ? 
Num poterunt umbrae te delectare silentes, 

Fusca contentam veste, humilique casa r 
Cum tibi nee fulget, qua3 quondam serica fulsit 

Vestis, nee gemmae quae micuere, micant ; 
Regum aulas poteris, festosque relinquere ccetus 

Pulchra ubi, prae pulchris omnibus, una nites ? 

Cum procul hinc aberis, nonne, O cara Anna, revertes 

Saepe in praeteritos anxia vota dies r 
Qui disces, experta parum, nunc fervida solis 

Spicula, nunc hyemis flamina rauca pati ? 
Vultusne iste tuus norit tarn mollis iniqui 

Temporis extremas posse subire vices ; 



232 OH, NANNY, WILT THOU GANG WITH ME ? 

Nor, sad, regret each courtly scene, 

Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? 

i 

Oh ! Nanny, canst thou love so true, 

Thro' perils keen with me to go ; 
Or when thy swain mishap shall rue, 

To share with him the pang of woe ? 
Say, should disease or pain befall, 

Wilt thou assume the nurse's care ; 
Nor wistful those gay scenes recall, 

Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? 

And when at last thy love shall die, 

Wilt thou receive his parting breath, 
Wilt thou repress each struggling sigh, 

And cheer with smiles the bed of death ? 
And wilt thou o'er his breathless clay 

Strew flow r ers, and drop the tender tear, 
Nor then regret these scenes so gay, 

Where thou wert fairest of the fair ? 

Bishop Pehcy. 



OH, NANNY, WILT THOU GANG WITH ME ? 233 

Nec laetae occurrent tristi tibi saepius aula? 

Pulchra ubi, prae pulchris omnibus, Anna fuit ? 

Sincerone adeo tibi pectus amore movetur, 

Ut me nolueris per mala nulla sequi ; 
Aut ego fortunae si quando incommoda plorem, 

Curarumne comes fida levabis onus ? 
Si dolor incident, si quis mihi morbus, an aegro 

Sedula tu nutrix, suppeditabis opem ? 
Nec tristi desiderio revocabitur hora, 

Pulchra ubi, prae pulchris omnibus, Anna fuit ? 

Atque ubi jam tandem moriar, nostramne fideli 

Tu praesens animam dum fugit ore leges ? 
Eluctansque premes suspirium, et aspera risu 

Mulcebis placido quot necis hora feret ? 
An tibi erit curae membra haec, jam frigida letho, 

Floribus et tenera. spargere lachrymula. ? 
Nec ccetus hilares istos meminisse pigebit, 

Pulchra ubi, prae pulchris omnibus, Anna fuit ? 

February 3rd, 1843. 



HYMN, BY BISHOP HEBEE. 



When spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laugh- 
ing soil, 

When summer's balmy showers refresh the mower's 
toil, 

When winter binds in frosty chains the fallow and 
the flood ; 

In God the earth rejoiceth still, and owns his Maker 
good. 

The birds that wake the morning, and those that 

love the shade, 
The winds that sweep the mountain, or lull the drowsy 

glade, 
The sun that from his amber bower rejoiceth on his 

way, 



Sett ver purpureos reserat lsetabile flores, 

Ridentemque novo gramme pingit humum ; 
Seu tener, sestivis delabens nubibus, imber 

Corpora messorum victa calore levat ; 
Seu glacialis hyems pigros tenet undique campos, 

Et dura celeres compede frsenat aquas ; 
Terra Deum testatur, et omnes laeta per horas 

Auctorem rerum praedicat esse bonum. 

Mane diem volucres hilari quae voce salutant, 
Vesperis et placidi quas magis umbra juvat ; 

Venti qui rapido nunc verrunt turbine montes, 
Quae nunc sopit iners lenior aura nemus ; 

Sol croceo qui de thalamo pulcherrimus exit, 
Tramitis setherei lsetus inire viam ; 



236 HYMN. 

The moon and stars, their master's name in silent 
pomp display. 

Shall man, the lord of nature, expectant of the sky, 
Shall man, alone -unthankful, his little praise deny ? 
No, let the year forsake its course, the seasons cease 

to be, 
Thee, Master, must we always love ; and, Saviour, 

honour Thee. 



The flowers of spring may wither, the hope of summer 

fade, 
The autumn droop in winter, the birds forsake the 

shade, 
The winds be lulPd, the sun and moon forget their 

old decree ; 
But we, in nature's latest hour, O Lord ! will cling to 

Thee. 



I HYMN. 237 

Et lima, et tacita fulgentia sidera pompa, 
Divinam agnoscunt cuncta creata manum. 

Ergone nos homines, quibus haec sunt omnia in usum 

Tradita, et ad caelum queis patefacta via est ; 
Nos soli ingrati nolemus solvere laudes, 

Debita supremo munera parva Deo ? 
Proh pudor ! antiquum licet annus deserat orbem, 

Nee solitas norint tempora certa vices. 
At Domine ! at nobis Tu semper amabere, nobis 

Semper erit cultum nomen honore Tuum. 

Marcescant verno reserati tempore flores, 

Promissa aestatis munera terra neget ; 
Inter eat brumae cedens autumnus iniqua? ; 

Deserat umbrosum turba canora nemus : 
Et sileant venti, legisque oblitus a vitas 

Nee cursus peragat sol, neque luna suos ; 
At nos, naturae suprema ubi venerit hora, 

Dividet haerentes nos Tibi nulla dies. 



THE SONG OF JUDITH, 

CHAP. XVI. VER. 2. 



" Begin unto my God with timbrels, sing unto my 
Lord with cymbals : tune unto Him a new psalm : 
exalt Him, and call upon his name. 



For God breaketh the battles : for among the camps, 
in the midst of the people, He hath delivered me out 
of the hands of them that persecuted me. 



Assur came out of the mountains from the north ; 
he came with ten thousands of his army, the mul- 
titude whereof stopped the torrents, and their horse- 
men have covered the hills. 



Pulsate sistruim principio Dei 
Nomen vocantes ; tollite cymbala 
Novisque mecum concinentes 
Carminibus Domini Jehovae 

* 

Efferte laudes : Ille minacium 
Iniqua fregit praelia, et h ostium 
Me castra fallentem superba 
Eripuit manibus scelestis. 

Descendit Assur de Borese jugis, 
Armata ducens millia ; tot maims 
Rivos morabantur ; tegebat 

Turba equitum, velut umbra, colles. 



240 THE SONG OF JUDITH. 

He bragged that he would burn up my borders, 
and kill my young men with the sword, and dash the 
sucking children against the ground, and make mine 
infants as a prey, and my virgins as a spoil. 



But the Almighty Lord hath disappointed them 
by the hand of a woman. 



For the mighty one did not fall by the young 
men, neither did the sons of the Titans smite him, 
nor high giants set upon him : but Judith the 



THE SONG OF JUDITH. 241 

Ergo hac tyrannus fretus ope, insolens 
Fines daturum dixerat ignibus 
Nostros, necaturumque ferro 
Se juvenes, neque parciturum 



Infantibus vel matris ab ubere 
In saxa jactis ; turn pueros fore 
Prsedam innocentes, et puellas 
Militibus spolium protervis. 



Verum has inanes Omnipotens minas 
Irrisit, usus foeminea manu : 
Non ense florentis juventa 
Ille viri cecidit prof anus 



Jactator ; ilium non soboles nova 
Titania de stirpe neci dedit ; 
Non interemerunt gigantes 
Anachidae similes catervae ; 



242 THE SONG OF JUDITH. 

daughter of Merari weakened him with the beauty 
of her countenance, 



For she put off the garment of her widowhood 
for the exaltation of those that were oppressed in 
Israel, and anointed her face with ointment, and 
bound her hair in a tire, and took a linen garment 
to deceive him. 



Her sandals ravished his eyes, her beauty took his 
mind prisoner, and her fauchion passed through his 
neck. 



THE SOXG OF JUDITH. 243 

Sed gloriantis robur Judith se 
Vicit, Merari filia, per dolos 
Aggressa, prsestantique vultu 
Debilitans animum feiocem ; 



Quae, cum mariti tristia funera 
Mcereret, atras deposuit tamen 
Vestes, ut oppressum levaret 
Solliciti populum Israelis. 



Xardo perunxit subdola Persico 
Frontem decoram, sindonaque induit, 
Mitraque velavit capillos, 
Falleret ut speciosa capti 



Mentem tyranni ; nee soleis nitor 
Qui fascinaret lumina defuit : 
Has ille devictus per artes 
Succubuit, gladiusque collum 



244 THE SONG OF JUDITH. 

The Persians quaked at her boldness, and the 
Medes were daunted at her hardiness. 



Then my afflicted shouted for joy, and my weak 
ones cried aloud; but they* were astonished: these 
lifted up their voices, but they were overthrown. 



The sons of the damsels have pierced them 
through, and wounded them as fugitives' children ; 
they perished by the battle of the Lord. 

* The Assyrians. 



THE SOXG OF JUDITH. 245 



Obdormientis discidit impiger : 
Ingentis ausi fama paventibus 
Persis repentinos tumultus 
Intulit, attonitisque Medis. 



Turn gens meorum, moesta modo et malis 
Afflicta, Tocem tollere gaudio ; 
Et nuper innrmas excitari 
Lsetiflcis animse triumphis ; 



At mente perculsi interea, et novo 
Casu stupentes, longe alios sonos 
Illi dederunt atque mersi 
Congemuere gravi ruina. 



Multo cadebant vulnere perciti 
Xostris ab omne parte sequentibus, 
Et sauciati sic peribant 

Ut pueri profugorum inermes ; 



246 THE SONG OF JUDITH. 



I will sing unto the Lord a new song : O Lord, 
Thou art great and glorious, wonderful in strength 
and invincible. 



Let all creatures serve Thee : for Thou spakest 
and they were made ; Thou did'st send forth thy 
Spirit and it created them ; and there is none that 
can resist thy voice. 



For the mountains shall be moved from their 
foundations with the waters, the rocks shall melt as 



THE SOXG OF JUDITH. 247 

Dux prseliorum quippe Deus stetit, 
Salusque nobis. Ergo age, non prius 
Audita cantabo Jehovse 

Carmina ; Tu tibi vindicasti 



Summos honores ; Tu celebrabere 
Invictus armis, robore prsepotens : 
Te quicquid in terris creatum est 
Et Dominum colat et Parentem. 



Vocem edidisti, cunctaque sunt tuo 
Formata verbo ; Spiritus exiit 
A Te tuus, totique mundo 
Esse dedit ; nee in universe 



Est orbe quicquam quod valeat Tibi 
Contendere : ipsi sedibus a suis 
Montes movebuntur, retroque 
Te veniente ferentur amnes ; 



248 THE SONG OF JUDITH. 

wax at thy presence : yet Thou art merciful to them 
that fear Thee. 



For all sacrifice is too little for a sweet savour unto 
Thee, and all the fat is not sufficient for thy 
"burnt-offering : but he that feareth the Lord is great 
at all times. 



Woe to the nations that rise up against my 
kindred! the Lord Almighty will take vengeance 
of them in the day of judgment, in putting fire and 
worms in their flesh ; and they shall feel them and 
weep for ever. 



THE SONG OP JUDITH. 249 

Te saxa viso, cera uti in ignibus 
Mollis, liquescent : Tu tamen omnibus 
Qui corde Te fido verentur 

Semper ades Bonus ac Benignus. 

Non immolatis nidor ab hostiis 
Gratissimus, non sufficiet Tibi 
Fumantis arae sumptuosum 

Munus ; id omne parum est ; sed ilium 

Qui Te timebit pectore sirnpliei 
Excelsa terrarum in loca provehes : 
Vae gentibus, quae in me levarint 
Atque meos apicem arrogantem ! 

Ultor supremo jamj am aderit die, 
Ignemque vermesque inferet improbis, 
Mittens in aeternos dolores, 

Et gemitum, et sine fine fletum. 

March 13th, 1851. 



T. RICHARDS, PRINILR. 
'• GT. QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S INN. 



L <. 



